Salvatore Ligresti, honorary president of Premafin and Fondiaria Sai, is being investigated by the Milan prosecutor's office on charges of having obstructed Consob. This is what La Stampa reports, explaining how yesterday the Guardia di Finanza asked the constructors to appear on Thursday in front of the prosecutor Luigi Orsi. The alleged crime is that he obstructed Consob in investigating the fluctuations in the Premafin stock during the negotiations for the sale of a share package to the French group Groupama.
The fact – Last autumn, while Ligresti was negotiating with the French, the Premafin stock had begun a curious ups and downs which ended with a substantial increase in the stock market value. The merit of this growth was due to several purchases of shares of the holding by Vincent Bollorè, vice president of Generali, who had managed to earn 5% of Premafin. The doubt arises as to the origin of this share package: it is suspected that they were a group of securities allocated in Switzerland, under trust management at a branch of Crédit Agricole, but indirectly controlled by Ligresti himself (who has always declared that he knew nothing about it).
If these conjectures prove to be true, the Sicilian financier would have to answer for unclear behaviour: on the one hand he negotiated with the French for the sale of a block of shares, on the other he sold the shares to Bollorè to increase the value of the share and make him pay to the French the highest possible price. To aggravate the situation is the fact that these Swiss securities, which it is presumed belonged to Ligresti, have never been declared to Consob. Furthermore, it should be remembered that it was Bollorè himself who put Groupama and Premafin in contact to start negotiations.
However, in the end no agreement was completed: the French withdrew and Unicredit took their place.
The need Ligresti had to sell shares to generate liquidity was known. He had in fact exposed himself to the banks for hundreds of millions of euros and those transfers allowed him to lighten his debts.
Consob, also warned against the sale of the mysterious Swiss share package, has decided to see clearly on the matter. While Alessandro Profumo (then Unicredit), Federico Imbert (Crédit Suisse) and Alberto Nagel (Mediobanca) gave the necessary clarifications, Ligresti made vague statements saying he did not remember who he had met in those days. Thursday, in front of the pm, it will have to be clearer.
