NPLs, Banco di Napoli sells to a Swedish company

30 January, Il Mattino

Intesa Sanpaolo speaks about a simple NPL transfer through a platform to promote the NPLs in excess. The financial operation, therefore, has no consequences in terms of jobs. Nevertheless, the employees and the unions are worried. They worry about the future of the Credit Collection Division, where half of the 550 employees work in the south of the country, in Campania, Puglia, Basilica, Calabria and Sicily.

In January, the press agency Bloomberg reported negotiations going on between the first Italian bank and Lindorff-Intrum Justitia for the creation of a common platform to manage bad loans, together with the transfer of a non-performing loans portfolio valued around 10 billion euro. To this, a long-term agreement on the additional NPL stock might also follow. Shortly after, Unicredit published a memo confirming only some “strategic options in the servicing activity of bad loans”. But all the operations of a more corporate nature are denied, explaining that “only the transfer of an NPL portfolio” is currently under discussion.

The negotiation with the Swedish company is at an advanced stage and everything will be clearer on 6th February when the Carlo Messina will present the new business plan. The decision of outsourcing the management of such a high amount arises some concerns on the presence of Banco di Napoli. Moreover, working on the credit collection for the 7 billion gross bad loans of the South, there are about one hundred employees between Naples, Caserta and Salerno, 38 in Bari, 100 in Potenza, 22 in Cosenza and 10 in Palermo.

The manager appointed for the southern area explains: “That would be another hit for the economy of the south. If Intesa is replaced by a foreign company, with no knowledge of the territory and of the society as we have, they will pay attention only to the financial and operational side of the matter. Whereas we have worked together with the companies to get them out of the crisis”.

All the unions of the sector (Fisac Cgil, FirstCisl e Uilca in testa) have asked Intesa Sanpaolo to keep the management of the Credit Collection Division in the business unit named Capital Light Bank and to not outsource the function.

Source: Il Mattino

Translator: Cristina Ambrosi

Intesa Sanpaolo will absorb Banco di Napoli

28 December, Finanza Report

Intesa Sanpaolo will absorb Banco di Napoli. It was decided yesterday by the Board of Directors and the decision will make history. If it’s true that Intesa already owned 100% of the bank from Naples, after the merger at the end of 2006 between Banca Intesa and Sanpaolo Imi, that bought Banco di Napoli in 2002, now the bank will lose its autonomy, even though the brand will stay.

The decision is due to the need of optimizing the activities in the new strategic plan up to 2021, that will be presented in February. Some important details from the plan have already started emerging, such as the reorganization of the asset management and insurance divisions, as well as the cost cuts with the staff reduction, even though they will be all voluntary redundancies.

The Board of Directors approved yesterday the operation that will be implemented between November 2018 and February 2019, ending a company history started in 1539, the year when the bank was established, one of the oldest banks in Italy.

Based on the current plan, it was also decided to incorporate Cassa dei risparmi di Forlì e della Romagna, with the approval of this latter. The operation is subordinated to the acquisition by Intesa of a quota of the remaining 10.74% from  Cassa dei Risparmi di Forlì for 46 million euro.

In the meanwhile, the ECB has communicated today to the bank led by Carlo Messina the requirements in terms of assets. Nothing surprising, as it was anticipated by Intesa itself in the past weeks. Following the results of the Srep process, the ECB set a minimum Cet 1 parameter of 8.145% for 2018, while the bank on 30th September reported a Cet 1 equal to 13%. The standard requirement is 9.33%, against a pro-forma parameter of the bank equal to 13.4%.

The capital in excess of Intesa makes possible “looking with positivity at the future potential impacts on capitalisation due to the new regulation”, commented Messina, stressing the bank’s “leadership position among the main European banks with a Cet 1 ratio exceeding by four percentage points the Srep requirement for 2018, meaning a minimum capitalisation over 12 billion euro”.

Source: Finanza Report

Translator: Cristina Ambrosi