In particular, the Italian State obtains additional time to withdraw from the capital of the bank Monte dei Paschi di Siena.
The European Commission on Tuesday approved a series of new commitments presented by the Italian State with a view to strengthening the capital of the bank Monte dei Paschi di Siena (BMPS) and granted it additional time to withdraw from its capital.
The Italian Ministry of the Economy, which had bailed out the Siena bank to the tune of 5.4 billion euros in 2017 and has since been its main shareholder (64.23%), failed to sell its stake before the end of last year, the original deadline.
Brussels has deemed “acceptable” Rome’s request for an extension of the deadline to complete the restructuring of the bank and sell the stake, the European Commission said in a statement, without revealing the new date.
“Some of the initial commitments have been implemented in a timely manner,” noted Brussels. The bank of Siena has thus “reduced its bad debts and its operating costs” and “improved its risk management policies”.
Italy offered several commitments like “additional divestments and divestments” and “further branch closures”, continues the Commission, which approved them in light of European Union rules on state aid. .
The BMPS announced at the end of June that it was launching a capital increase of 2.5 billion euros this year in order to strengthen its equity and finance its new strategic plan 2022-2026 which aims to increase its profitability and reduce its costs.
The Italian State will subscribe to the capital increase up to the amount of its participation, ie approximately 1.6 billion euros.
The strategic plan provides in particular for 4,000 voluntary departures, i.e. nearly a fifth of the workforce, and cost savings of 270 million euros per year from 2023.
At the same time, the bank intends to reduce its stock of gross bad debts to 3.2 billion euros in 2024 and 2.8 billion in 2026, compared to 4.1 billion at the end of 2021.
Since the failure in October of its negotiations with UniCredit, number two in the sector, the BMPS has not succeeded in finding a buyer, thus preventing the State from getting rid of its share.
