Poste Italiane goes ahead to "increase profitability and services to customers". The CEO Matteo Del Fante and the head of BancoPosta Andrea Novelli reiterated this during the conference call with analysts on Thursday evening with the Stock Exchange closed. The partnership with Anima and the renewed agreement with Cdp are the two pillars on which the managers aim to achieve the goal. With Anima, the agreement provides for a strengthening of the partnership in managed savings, while with CDP, Poste Italiane aims to improve the postal savings collection service.
"These are two fundamental agreements to become the main centralizer of investments in Italy," said Del Fante, specifying that understanding with Soul will be completed in February and the closing, subject to scrutiny by the competent authorities, is expected by the end of the fourth quarter of 2018. Del Fante said he sees "substantial capital gains in 2018" from the conclusion of the partnership with Anima, extended to 15 years , and underlined the results of the group's financial activities which, at the end of September 2017, amounted to a total of over 500 billion euros (+2,5% compared to December 2016) on a base of 34 million retail customers equal to 56% of the Italian population.
1,8 BILLION COMMISSIONS FROM POSTAL SAVINGS
Poste Italiane has set a target of 1,8 billion in commissions deriving from the placement of CDP's postal savings for this year. The new agreement with CDP, valid for the three-year period 2018-2020, introduced the novelty of a minimum level for Poste Italiane's remuneration of 1,55 billion, while the 'ceiling' was set at 1,85 billion per year. Del Fante and Novelli indicated a negative target for net postal savings inflows in 2018, after a first part of 2017 with rather negative numbers: 8 billion net outflows in the first half. Answering the analysts' questions, the two managers ruled out the risk of competition between the Anima and Cdp products offered to customers at the post office counter.
WITH SOUL STRENGTHENED COOPERATION
With regard to the revision of the agreement with Anima, a deal announced before Christmas, Del Fante and Novelli explained that it is a matter of strengthening cooperation with the subsidiary, one of the major Italian players in the asset management market, of which Poste Italiane holds 10,3 .15% of the capital. The cooperation concerns investment funds and unit-linked policies (branch III), in addition to the institutional mandate for the management of traditional life insurance assets (branch I). A duration of 100 years has been established for the collaboration agreement to ensure a long-term value, and every year Poste undertakes to subordinate to Anima the management of a certain percentage of Postevita's asset management volumes and of BancoPosta Fondi Sgr in which Poste will retain XNUMX% of the share capital.
POSSIBLE REFRESHMENT FOR EUROPA IMMOBILIARE SUBSCRIBERS 1
Some form of refreshment is not excluded for the subscribers of the Europa Immobiliare 1 real estate fund, intended for retail and placed mainly by the Post Office in 2004. The fund ended its activities with the sale of the last properties in the portfolio last December. The possibility of a refreshment was not excluded by the managing director Matteo Del Fante. The old management of Poste had decided to refresh the subscribers of another real estate fund placed by Poste in the early 1s: Invest Real Security. Del Fante referred to this operation in his reply to an analyst, adding that for the Europa Immobiliare 2.500 fund it will first be necessary to wait for the final report and then "decide what to do". The units of the fund, managed by Vegagest Sgr, were placed at retail at 2017 euros each. The placement was also made by the custodian bank: the Cassa di Ferrara, now merged into Bper. The value of the share in June 491 had dropped to XNUMX euros.
