On the one hand: “It will not be a sellout of state sectors”. On the other: the sale is “unavoidable”, because the bank’s plan is not “according” to some of the commitments made with theEU and therefore there is a risk that i 2,500 redundancies estimated by the institute, if the Commission were to raise the bar. Following the request by the Finance Committees of the Chamber and Senate, the Minister of the Economy Daniele Franco he showed up to report on the operation Unicredit-Mps describing the scenario underlying the open dialogue between the Treasury, owner of 64% of the Sienese bank since 2017, when the then Minister of Economy Pier Carlo Padoan (now president of Unicredit) orchestrated yet another rescue of the Tuscan institute. Minister Franco stated that “only two subjects have expressed an interest in Mps, the Apollo fund and Unicredit”.
An operation, the one between Mps and Unicredit, which “constitutes a strategically superior solution from the point of view ofgeneral interest of the country, ”he said during the report. And it is possible that the Ministry of Economy “receives actions of the Unicredit group but such possible participation in the share capital of the group should not alter the balance of governance “. So, on the one hand, he tried to reassure the fact that “it won’t be one clearance sale of state sectors “and on the other initiated that” there are no conditions for question the sale “.
However, faced with what has been defined as a ‘stew’ of the Sienese bank, he stressed that “at the moment there are no elements that suggest risks of dismemberment of the bank”. The bank, he added, has developed “its own strategy development “but” the new plan prepared, taking into account the commitments with the EU Commission, has non-compliant goals to these commitments “. In particular, the cost reduction set at 51% of the revenues from Brussels, while according to the plan the 74% in 2021 and again on 61% al 2025. “In case likely in which the EU Commission set a more ambitious goal “than cost reduction for Mps, redundancies “could be considerably higher” than 2,500 units from voluntary exodus estimated by the bank in the business plan. In his reply, after the interventions, he guaranteed that “We will not close at all costs” and in any case, if the due diligence is successful, “we will return to Parliament “.
The outcome of the stress test, he recalled, “confirms the need for a structural strengthening of great scope ”for Mps and to“ bring it up average values of European banks “would require” an increase well above that envisaged by the 2020-2025 plan “by € 2.5 billion. “The stand alone plan – added Franco – would be exposed to risks ed uncertainties considerable and to serious competitiveness problems “. And again: “The conditions for an interlocution are not recognized” with the European Union to change the conditions that provide for the sale by the Mef. Which, he concluded, has “priority” the “safeguarding ofoccupation he was born in brand name, as well as savings “. The operation will be conducted, he reassured, in a “context of maximum attention towards employment issues “within” a relaunch project and of enhancement of the city of Siena “.
Tomorrow Mps will communicate the data relating to second quarter of the year. The quarterly report could close with a small profit. This is what is learned in circles close to the Sienese bank, in which there is talk of an operating result that should be substantially “In line” with that of the first quarter when profits were budgeted for nearly 120 million. Tomorrow the board of directors, in addition to the accounts, will approve the transaction with the MPS Foundation, which will cost 150 million euros, which will put an end to a legal dispute, and the effects of which should impact on the results of the third quarter due to temporal competence.