The payment of the refreshment offered to the members of the Popolare di Bari is under way. This was announced by Commissioner Antonio Blandini during the hearing held before the Banking Commission on the state of health of the Apulian institution.
The operation will be launched "in the next few days" and completed "during the extraordinary administration", therefore by 15 October next, when according to forecasts the assembly should reconstitute the bank's bodies, putting an end to the commissioner management.
Pop Bari has proposed to the members an indemnity equal to 2,38 euro per share. 63% of the recipient shareholders adhered to the proposal with a number of bank shares equal to approximately 61% of the value in euro of the total shares held by the recipients of the proposal. In total, the bank will pay 44 million euros.
Blandini then addressed the issue of securing the bank from a capital point of view. According to the commissioner, the Popolare di Bari will have to face two more at a loss to then arrive at a balanced budget in 2022 and a positive economic result in 2023-2024.
The commissioner explained that, at the time of the start of the extraordinary administration, "the initial situation was absolutely delicate from an industrial point of view" with a cost/income ratio "among the worst in Italy". For this reason, he continued, after "the balance sheet stabilization with 1,6 billion euros by Fitd and Mcc, now there is a need to implement" the measures envisaged in the industrial plan "even if"the effects of the Covid pandemic” bring “elements of uncertainty”.
The other extraordinary commissioner, Enrico Ajello, also expressed his opinion on the near future, according to which “the 2020-2024 plan provides for losses with related effects on assets but it is a plan drawn up starting from 2010-2020 in a pre-Covid situation. In the second half of the year there are high uncertainties and volatilities both for Bari and for all the other banks”.
For this reason, the new governance, whose election is scheduled for the meeting of 15 October, will be able to have "in the second half of the year" a clearer picture of the effects and costs of restructuring and "formulate forecasts on the basis of concrete data and factual".
