Return to profit and a substantial sale of Npl in sight. Ubi closes the week of Italian bank accounts with results and a trend that were also common to the big Intesa Sanpaolo and Unicredit, namely under the banner of derisking and high profits. In some cases, like that of Ubi, profit is back after a difficult period: in 2017, thanks also to the acquisition of the three good banks Etruria, Marche, Carichieti achieved an accounting profit of 690,6 million euro compared to a loss of 830,2 million for Ubi Banca "stand alone" , i.e. before the acquisitions, in 2016. Even net of non-recurring items, the profit was in any case positive, at 188,7 million euro.
“It was a complex but at the same time extremely positive year – commented the managing director Victor Massiah -, we did many things and we did them well, some of which even in advance such as the single bank project, completed in February while it was expected in June. And above all we made the offer and the capital increase for the three banks, Etruria, Marche, Carichieti, an operation that was highly appreciated by the market. Over time, we migrated first Marche and then Etruria into our bank: at the end of November we had the two largest banks already merged into Ubi. In December we started and carried out the reporting of all customers".
Another important result was that linked to derisking: Ubi Banca approved the sale over the next 3 years of a significant package of non-performing loans in order to accelerate the achievement of a gross non-performing loan ratio of less than 10% between 2019 and 2020, depending on market conditions and in line with the standards achieved or set by other Italian banks. Already in 2017, Ubi Banca's gross non-performing loans fell by 12,7 billion euro, with an incidence of 13% on total gross loans.
As regards the current year, the watchword is growth: “2018 – commented Massiah – should bring us an extremely significant increase in profitability and therefore further implementation of the industrial plan we have presented. We are aiming for: growth in the interest margin thanks to a further reduction in the funding account; growth in terms of commissions thanks to the fact that we have truly created all the conditions to be able to grow on each individual component, both from an asset management point of view and from an insurance point of view as well as from the point of view of commissions on more traditional activities" .
During the conference call, the managing director of the Lombard bank also shed light on possible acquisitions, answering questions from journalists: “We will take the last step on the incorporation of the three banks in the next few weeks. This is not what would stop us in case of opportunities on new aggregations but at the moment we don't have any open dossiers. In the future, however, a further moment of consolidation around 3 or 4 large leading banks will be inevitable, but this can happen in a year or in five, nobody knows”.
At the moment the market has discreetly accepted the accounts of Ubi, which in the mid-afternoon is more or less on parity in Piazza Affari, above 4 euros per share on a day that tends to be negative for the FtseMib index.
