At 6 pm yesterday some deadline for expression of interest from potential buyers of Nuova Cassa di risparmio di Ferrara, Nuova Banca delle Marche, Nuova Banca dell’Etruria e del Lazio and Nuova Cassa di risparmio di Chieti expired.
Expressions of interest for the four mid-size “good banks” which were split last November from bad banks after a Government rescue were delivered to advisor Société Générale both by financial institutions and by private equity funds both Italian and international (see here a previous post by BeBeez).
The call for expression of interest specifies that the “Bank of Italy reserves the faculty, in order to maximize the return on the dismissal of the Bridge Institutions, to start the transfer, including “en bloc” (in blocco), of assets, goods and legal relationships owned by the same, separately from the transfer of the Bridge Institutions themselves, including their shareholdings in Banca Federico del Vecchio spa, Cassa di Risparmio di Loreto spa, Oro Italia Trading spa, BAP Assicurazioni spa, BAP Vita e Previdenza spa, Cedacrispa, Carife S.E.I. srl (each a non-core entity and collectively the non-core entities)” (download here the call for expression of interest).
Banca Popolare dell’Emilia Romagna sis said to be interested in CR Ferrara, a bank which operates in the same geografical area, MF Milano Finanza wrties today. The newspaper also writes that three bank which were said to be interested did not answered the call for expression of interest intestead. These banks being BnpParibas, Crédit Agricole and Ubi Banca. The latttter is actually bidding for Banca Popolare di Milano while the two French banks seem to be more interested in growing in the asset amangement and private banking sectors than in retail banking.
As far as private equity firms are concered some names are circulating as having answered the call such as Apollo, Centerbridge, Anacap and BC Partners.
The four good banks’ chairman Roberto Nicastro, said that “this one is a very first stage of the sale process, it is just a call for receiving the first documentation about the banks on sale. We will see in the next future how those interests are strong”.
In the meantime Banca Marche, Etruria, CariChieti and Carife are starting to work again and in the last few days about 10k loans and 3k mortgages have been issued.
