Even gurus make mistakes. Steve Schwarzman, head of Kkr, thought he had made a good deal when, in 1995, he managed to get 240 million dollars from the sale of BlackRock to a medium-sized regional bank, the Pnc. “It was a historic mistake,” the private equity giant later admitted. The confirmation came yesterday with the news that the same Pnc Bank has put up for sale almost all of the 22% it holds in the global asset management giant, which today administers 6.470 billion dollars invested almost everywhere, including Italy (it is the second largest shareholder of Intesa, for example). A deal from 17 billion dollars concluded on the same day that the plan to purchase bonds issued by companies exhausted by the crisis kicks off. An operation that the Federal Reserve entrusted BlackRock itself, already used successfully in the USA in the 2008 crisis but also by the ECB. Confirming the trust that the colossus managed by Larry Fink through the Aladdin network (one of the most sophisticated supercomputers on the planet) has won thanks to the efficiency and firepower of Ishares, the most important ETF in the world. But also for the independence demonstrated in the course of the activity, a quality that is destined to be further guaranteed by the share reorganization which provides for an increase, thanks to a robust buyback of treasury shares.
By chance, the American deal coincided with the presentation of the quarterly of Finecobank, Tuesday up 2% late morning, solidly in first place in the Eurostoxx Banks index since the beginning of the year with a loss of about 5% which compares with the dramatic -46% recorded by the sector average. The institute led by Alessandro Foti has been able to defend its independence along a journey in which, before leaving the orbit of Unicredit, there have been some complicated passages, from Bipop to Capitalia. But Fineco (adjusted net profit growing sharply thanks to its diversified business model: 92,2 million (+45,4%) has been able to overcome every obstacle to qualify today as one of the most important FinTech banks in Europe. In full evolution of business, moreover: in the next few weeks Fineco will start its own campaign
marketing in the UK, initially focusing on offering in brokerage. Fineco will also carry out a deep renewal of banking and payment services with a new dashboard for credit and debit cards, which will be fully digitised.
A new leap in quality for a bank which, even before the year XNUMX, taught many families the usefulness of computers for managing money. And who knows if the public company will be able to lend a hand to the public administration in the future, avoiding the "lean" of these weeks.
