By the end of February, the details of the relaunch plan for Banca Popolare di Vicenza and Veneto Banca will arrive, within which the merger between the two Venetian institutes is envisaged.
The aggregation will instead become reality in the month of September. This is the calendar presented by Alessandro Penati, president of Quaestio Sgr, manager of the Atlante fund, on the sidelines of a conference in Milan.
Penati recalled that, without Atlante's intervention, the two institutions would have gone "straight into resolution", while instead in nine months the fund managed to "pull them out" and is now asking the ECB for authorization for the plan.
'The ECB tells us that it already considers it as a single bank and it has not been easy, I consider it a huge success - added the manager - At this point if it goes through and works, and I have reason to believe it will go through, the restructuring will be a success”.
“If we close it by the beginning of September we have two restructurings, two badcos, one merger: in one year I think it's a record', declared Penati.
However, there has been progress compared to the past: “We have two banks that were practically bankrupt and are still in disastrous situations. We - he continued - are presenting a plan with the support of the ECB in which we carry out two restructurings, two total clean ups, not only of NPLs but also of unlikely to pay loans, a merger and in three years we bring it to ratios that will be best in Italy: I consider it a huge success”.
Finally, a judgment on Atlante which, according to the president of Quaestio Sgr, “has bought the Veneto banks in IPO with numbers that were from the book of dreams. There is no laughing matter, those numbers were ridiculous – he added – What we have found in many situations, dig, dig, is a horror story”.
