Dear Director, the die has been cast. Now that Giorgia Meloni has moved from Tolkien to the greats of world finance as well as to the winds of war and Giorgetti’s new taxes, she must carefully look at the UniCredit-Commerzbank affair, which opens up a great banking risk that is no longer just domestic.
CEO Andrea Orcel, after having failed the previous Draghi government and Meloni herself on the purchase of Monte dei Paschi di Siena, has in fact thrown the dice and set foot in Germany, preparing to create a European financial giant which, although necessary, it could cause our prime minister some displeasure. Larger than you might imagine and, above all, much “thinner”. In the sense that those who are familiar with German politics know that Berlin is ready to negotiate with UniCredit and the CEO of the second Italian bank could not ask for anything better, but Roman politics will only be offered sweets: the headquarters will remain in Milan and the stock will remain listed in Italy, however the real meat of the deal will be outside our borders. Orcel appears determined to free itself from exposure to Italian government debt, of which UniCredit is a large underwriter and distributor. The angular character of the CEO is well known in the financial system, from UBS to Merrill Lynch, and in the past even President Draghi and his trusted squire Francesco Giavazzi had well measured it.
Even Moody’s has declared that it is ready to review UniCredit’s rating, bringing it even above that of Italian sovereign debt. As if to say that he likes the idea of a less tricolor UniCredit.
In the meantime, at the Quirinale there are those who are keeping a close watch, well aware of the scope of this operation, in some ways more sovereignist in the sense of defense of the nation – of sovereignists. It is clear that, to face a challenge of this type, a coordinated national policy is needed. The traditional banking system can no longer be the solution: it is necessary to create a hub integrated with the insurance sector which, ideally, does not depend only on the consolidated Italian-French dynamics, which are almost always to the detriment of Italy. After years of empty talk about the so-called “bank-insurance”, realities such as that of Carlo Messina’s Intesa Sanpaolo are finally emerging, capable of integrating insurance services successfully, unlike others. In the panorama of investments increasingly oriented abroad, there is also Sace, led with a firm attitude by Alessandra Ricci, which plays a crucial role in supporting Italian exports with guarantees and accompanying programs towards high potential markets.
In short, the UniCredit-Commerbank affair is no longer just Italian. Banking risk is infecting Europe, with a very fragmented Germany and an overabundance of banking institutions throughout the EU that make mergers inevitable. While UniCredit is concentrating its troops in Berlin, the vision of Italian banks appears increasingly short-sighted and outdated. Nowadays it is no longer just about banks, but about sectors that are intertwined with technologies that are quickly redesigning the market shares of managed savings, mortgages and payments. In the context of pan-European concentration, as France consolidates AXA’s asset management under BNP Paribas, Italian attempts to resolve the situation around MPS seem increasingly provincial. Everyone is deaf to the fact that MPS is a problem that requires rapid, concrete and definitive intervention. Time is passing and every delay does nothing but reveal the fragility of the management of the CEO Luigi Lovaglio, revealing that, under the veneer of his singing and playing storytelling, a great uncertainty is hidden. Once the effect of the rates was over, of the cut of the 4,500 or more employees, due to the resources injected by the MEF and of the good fate that resolved the old judicial issues by releasing the “monster” provisions that had weighed down the oldest bank in the world, the Re now he risks being naked. Lovaglio, the seventy-year-old “cuddle” of the former Treasury director Alessandro Rivera, has never shown that he has visionary qualities: his strategy is based on paranoid control of costs as well as on the closing of the credit taps. He presents himself as the savior of the Sienese bank, but he seems to be supported more by a clever public relations machine than by deserved results. And Minister Giorgetti – who, with a venomous touch, recently recalled that MPS’s successes are the result of fortuitous circumstances – is increasingly in a hurry to find an industrial solution. For this reason he has outlined a reorganization plan for the Italian banking system intertwined with the recent moves of UniCredit which, after having aimed to strengthen its presence in Germany with the acquisition of Commerzbank, seems to have definitively put aside any interest in conquering MPS .
In short, the risk extended to Europe by Orcel’s move makes the banking future in Italy increasingly uncertain. If UniCredit moves its center of gravity to Germany, the risk for Italy is to find itself without a real second banking hub, after Intesa. So the UniCredit-Commerzbank operation could also have a positive impact on the Italian banking context, perhaps accelerating the timing of a domestic consolidation in which MPS is necessarily called upon to play a key role. Giorgetti confirmed that the State will proceed with caution, trying to obtain the best market conditions and maximize the value of the sale. However, it is not yet clear who would be the ideal industrial partner for a merger.
The German conquest of Orcel could start a revolution in the entire Italian banking system, giving Giorgia yet another headache. Perhaps in last week’s meeting with Larry Fink, the CEO of BlackRock, shareholder of both UniCredit and Commerzbank, he tried to find an “out of the box” solution. In the meantime, the prime minister, to be on the safe side, has already rolled the lucky die.
#grappling #banking #risk #puzzle #Tempo
2024-10-07 06:04:06
