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Veneto Banca and Pop Vicenza to Intesa: the State will commit 17 billion

The Council of Ministers approved the decree which allows Intesa Sanpaolo to immediately take over the healthy assets of the Veneto banks without going through the bail-in and separating the NPLs which will be grouped into a bad bank paid by the Treasury which will mobilize a total of 17 billion euro also to refinance the Redundancy Fund (there will be 4) and ensure the capital necessary for Intesa for the operation

Veneto Banca and Pop Vicenza to Intesa: the State will commit 17 billion

The branches and branches of the Popular Bank of Vicenza and Veneto Bank they reopen on Monday morning under the banner of Intesa Sanpaolo, which immediately detects the healthy assets at the symbolic cost of 1 euro. The decree which gives immediate effect to the rescue operation of the two Veneto banks through the so-called "ordered bankruptcy" was approved on Sunday afternoon by a very fast Council of Ministers (20 minutes in all) which thus crowned a double agreement: that with the European Commission and the one with the Bank led by Carlo Messina.

The State, as Economy Minister Pier Carlo Padoan explained, will take charge of the problem loans of the two Veneto banks through the establishment of a bad bank, which will group the NPLs on the model already tested for the banks of central Italy (Banca Etruria, Banca Marche, Carichieti and Carife), previously ended up in resolution. But, according to the agreements with the Entente, the State will also have to refinance the redundancy fund, considering that there are 4 surplus workers in the Veneto banks who will be accompanied towards voluntary exodus and early retirement. These two operations initially cost the State 12 billion, which rises to 17 billion because the Treasury will guarantee Intesa the necessary levels of capitalization and equity to carry out the buyout-bailout operation requiring approximately 5 billion euros. Over time, however, the state selling Npl of the Veneto banks, hopes to recover at least part of the resources committed

The operation will instead cost dearly to the shareholders of the Popolare di Vicenza and Veneto Banca - i.e. mainly to the Atlante Fund - which will see the securities canceled, as will happen to the subordinate bondholders. Save i instead depositors, the account holders and holders of ordinary bonds of the two banks.

With the bailout of the two Venetian banks, a chapter that has long sown uncertainty in the financial system closes and which now allows us to go to the solution of the case during the week Ps, because the Atlante Fund, freed from its duties in the Veneto region, will have more resources available to take over the Sienese bank's NPLs.

Although the operation on the Veneto banks is to be considered the lesser evil, the exacerbation of the political controversies, of an electoral flavor, which the League and the 5 Star Movement, by confusing bankers and banks (which are made up not only of shareholders but of employees, savers and customers represented by businesses and families), will not fail to feed. But, defining the rescue operation "important, urgent and necessary", the Prime Minister, Paolo Gentiloni, appealed to Parliament to understand the reasons and quickly approve the provision.

Also because, underlined a press release from Intesa Sanpaolo, the contract for the sale of the healthy assets of Popolare Vicenza and Veneto Banca "includes a termination clause, which provides for the ineffectiveness of the contract and the retrocession to the banks in compulsory administrative liquidation of the scope of the acquisition, in particular in the event that the Decree Law is not converted into law, or is converted with amendments and/or additions such as to make the transaction more onerous for Intesa Sanpaolo, and is not fully in force within the terms of the law”: E ' what can be read in a press release from Intesa SanPaolo regarding the go-ahead from the council of ministers to the decree for the rescue of the Veneto banks.

(Updated June 26 at 12,16)

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