“For intermediaries of the size and complexity of the 10 largest Italian cooperatives the cooperative corporate form is a handicap which must be removed as soon as possible". This is the position of Salvatore Rossi, general manager of the Bank of Italy, spoke today in the Chamber for a hearing on the reform of public banks. The government has included the provision in the Investment Compact decree and its approval "is desirable not because regulators or international markets impose it, but because common sense suggests it”, added Rossi, underlining that the reform “goes in the direction of strengthen their ability to perform well in a rapidly changing banking market”, because “in addition to facilitate recourse to the capital market by cooperative banks, may also improve its management, in the interest of the whole economy”; today, on the other hand, "in the large cooperative banks there is the risk of a drift" which leads to the "prolonged and uncontrolled" power of a "single figure or group of power that is the expression of a minority".
After the opinion already expressed by the governor Ignazio Visco, Palazzo Koch thus reaffirms its support for the new legislation which requires popular institutions with assets exceeding eight billion euros (a "reasonable" threshold according to Rossi) to transform themselves into joint-stock companies within 18 months of the arrival of the implementing regulation. which will be written by Bank of Italy itself. There are a total of 11 institutions involved, seven of which are listed on the Stock Exchange (Banco Popolare, Ubi Banca, Popolare Emilia Romagna, Popolare di Milano, Popolare di Vicenza, Veneto Banca, Popolare di Sondrio) and four absent from Piazza Affari (Credito Valtellinese, Popular of Bari, Popular of Etruria and Lazio e Banca Popolare dell'Alto Adige-Volksbank).
"To fear injuries to the cooperative spirit or to the close link with the territory is, in the case of large and complex banks, anachronistic and at odds with the facts – Rossi said again -. Negative consequences for employment would derive from keeping them in a condition of financial and managerial fragility, not from a corporate structure that can indeed facilitate the search for efficiency and economies of scale".
The model of banking regulation and supervision that has established itself in recent years, in the world and in Europe, "is centered on rigorous compliance with high capital requirements, in severe and widespread periodic stress tests, in the timely involvement of shareholders and creditors in any losses – continued the general manager of Bankitalia -. can to adjust the capital conspicuously and rapidly as needed today it is a fundamental prerequisite for a bank to survive. It may be necessary to do so by logging in promptly to the capital market, in which case it is not necessary to have improper constraints".
With the transition from popular companies to joint stock companies, the per capita vote will be eliminated (the principle whereby each person in the meeting is worth one vote, regardless of the different shareholdings in the hands of the shareholders) and we will move on to the joint-stock company system (in which the power decision-making is divided among the shareholders in proportion to the various quotas). The institutes will then say goodbye to two limits: the minimum number of members (200) and the maximum participation in the hands of each of them (1%).
“The Italian economy needs, and will need even more in the recovery that is beginning, efficient banks, with financial solidity, at ease on the international market – concluded Rossi -. Banks that are able to accompany, indeed to encourage, the dimensional growth of dynamic and innovative small and medium-sized enterprises, growth on which much of our future depends. The Italian economy will continue to need also of small and cooperative banks, who know how to interpret the best community values that the territories are able to express, at the service of the fabric of savers and businesses that remain small. But they too will have to work to find organizational solutions that make them healthier and more efficient".
For cooperatives with assets of less than 8 billion, the reform provides for the reduction of the thresholds necessary for the approval of mergers and transfers from a cooperative to a joint stock company in the assembly, since a majority of two thirds of the voters will suffice on the second call, regardless of how much capital is represented.
"The Government has a strong intention to go ahead with the overall structure of the decree - confirmed today the Undersecretary for the Economy, Pier Paolo Baretta, closing the work of a conference dedicated to cooperative banks -. If we do nothing, if we don't arrive at a fixed point, there are risks. But what we can do is set the discussion on some points”, such as the scalability of the banks transformed into joint stock companies and the territorial characteristics.
Attachments: The complete speech by Salvatore Rossi.pdf
