Mps dossier, Prime Minister Meloni speaks
Mps: the Prime Minister herself spoke of the too heavy legacy that has afflicted the Italian government for years now, Giorgia Meloniin an interview given to Milano Finanza, published over the weekend.
Prime Minister Meloni has once again emphasized the need that the state mountain (State since 2017, since the MEF became the first shareholder with the precautionary recapitalization) is transformed back into a private bank, simultaneously pointing the finger at the past management.
“We must not repeat the mistakes of the past – Giorgia Meloni told Milano Finanza – We have confirmed Lovaglio at the helm of Monte dei Paschi, the managing director has successfully completed the latest capital increase and now we need to work to bring Monte back to the private market”.
Meloni again on Monte dei Paschi di Siena:
“We want to manage in an orderly way the exit of the State from the capital of MPS to create the conditions in Italy for there to be more banking centres”.
Therefore, the privatization of Mps in the plans of the Meloni government should be instrumental in the creation of various banking groups in Italyin the context of a consolidation process that has been desired for some time by the European financial authorities themselves and which in Italy continues to be talked about: in reality not so much with the facts, but with the rumors on duty.
Mps says it is ready for risk
Meloni’s aim now is to get rid of that 64% stake in the Sienese bank which, after the EU’s ok to the extension, continues to remain in the hands of the Italian state.
It was MPS itself that said it was ready, in responses to shareholder questions that were circulated last week, looking at all M&A opportunities in the Italian banking sector.
After the completion of the 2.5 billion euro capital increase, Monte “has one of the highest capitalization in the system – we read – and, thanks to the reduction in structural costs and the strengthening of the commercial organisation, it is started towards the achievement of the objective envisaged by the plan, to generate over 700 million euros of profits in 2024“.
“This premise – underlined the Sienese institute – will allow MPS to look at all the opportunities that may arise in terms of consolidation of the Italian banking sector”.
Meloni had lashed out against ‘pretty bad’ management
Giorgia Meloni’s promise “We work for an orderly exit from the state” from the capital of Monte dei Paschi is not new, and is practically the same as that of last December 2022, when the Prime Minister lashed out, also that time and perhaps in even harsher tones, against bank management.
In that occasion, Prime Minister Meloni he recalled that “a capital increase had been made”, underlining that “a fairly solid restructuring was underway”:
the one launched precisely by CEO Luigi Lovaglio which, earlier this year, stoked bets about an imminent, long-awaited wedding to a potential white knight.
Meloni had added:
“We are working, for example, on the MPS dossier, another of the great inherited issues, a very difficult situation, managed quite badly so far, with tens of billions spent on taxpayers”.
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However, the matter has not changed much.
L’hypothetical white knight remains in the field of hypotheses, at least as far as the large Italian banks are concerned.
But the rumors about the risk do not concern Monte
And Mps isn’t actually the subject of the latest rumors either bank risk which, in recent days, have returned to inflame Piazza Affari: there have in fact been rumors of M&A, but they have rather seen the protagonists two Big UniCredits and Banco BPM.
However, someone immediately underlined how an eventual marriage between UCG and BAMI could be hindered, above all by the Italian government, known for always interfering in the dynamics concerning the banking world.
This was explicitly pointed out, in a note on the matter, Intermonte, who wrote – according to what was reported by the Il Sole 24 Ore-Radiocor news agency – that the purchase of Banco BPM by Piazza Gae Aulenti “would close the Mps-Banco Bpm issue, with probable disagreement of the government”.
“We believe that the government sees favorably the creation of a third banking pole rather than a UniCredit-Banco operation and that Credit Agricole seeks to preserve its commercial agreements with Banco Bpm”, Intermonte wrote last week.
Last time the market seriously bet on wedding between UniCredit and Banco BPM it was in February 2022, exactly at the beginning of that month, which would be talked about, shortly after, above all for the invasion of Ukraine by Vladimir Putin’s Russia.
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It was then the same CEO of Banco BPM Giuseppe Castagna, on the occasion of his reconfirmation as CEO by the shareholders of Piazza Meda, who scuttled the rumors about UniCredit and definitively nip the possibility of an acquisition of Mps.
“We don’t watch it – replied the CEO of Banco BPM, referring to the Sienese bank – Our idea is of do not pursue any aggregation, particularly if complicated and difficult. We are careful not to miss any opportunities that may arise, but we are careful to remember that making or undergoing an acquisition is disruptive from an industrial point of view”.
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