Stormy waters in the popular banks of the Veneto. Losses and maxi-devaluations of the shares have infuriated the shareholders of Banca Popolare di Vicenza and Veneto Banca, tested by the shareholders' meetings after the reform of the cooperative banks which will oblige them to abandon the per capita vote and transform themselves into joint stock companies within 18 months.
Today at the shareholders' meeting of Banca Popolare di Vicenza, led by Gianni Zonin, big words flew because several shareholders accused the top management of the serious budget losses recorded in 2014 (758 million euros) but also and above all for the maxi- devaluation of the shares which cut the capitalization of the 117 shareholders by 1,3 billion euros with a loss in the value of the securities which takes them back to the pre-crisis years.
Zonin announced the transformation into a joint stock company and the search for a partner for Vicenza, anticipating that when the wedding is completed "I will no longer be president".
Great tension also in the Veneto Banca di Montebelluna where the script is repeating itself in view of next week's social assembly. The newly formed Veneto Banca shareholders' association, chaired by the former president of the Court of Treviso, Giovanni Schiavon, wrote a fiery letter in which he stigmatized the 2014 financial statement loss of 968 million euros and even more the 22,80% devaluation of the value of the shares of over 90 thousand shareholders. "Losses in the financial statements - writes the Association - have in fact swept away and canceled the cumulative value of the profits of the last 20 years and also part of the equity". The maxi-devaluation, on the other hand, brought the value of the shares back to the 2006 prices.
The Veneto Banca shareholders' association, which had previously expressed all its opposition to the hypothesis of marriage with Vicenza, is not at all convinced of the official reasons for the balance sheet losses given by the bank's top management and attributed to the new asset valuation criteria assets imposed by the ECB and claims to "promptly" check all the accounting data of the past but also those relating to the new budget and the industrial plan.
Even in Montebelluna the battle for the assembly on Saturday 18 April is expected.
