Former Intesa Sanpaolo’ceo and former Economic Development Minister Corrado Passera withdrew his proposal for subscription of reserved capital increase for Montepaschi Bank yesterday which has been delivered 20 days ago with the backing od institutional international investors ready to commit 2 billion euros as equity and 1-1.5 billions as a guarantee for the following capital increase on the public market.
Mr. Passera had submitted a plan for a recapitalization of Mps and an Npls sale which was backed by a group of private equity firms and an alternative to the one that was finally announced at the end of July. That plan was not examined by Mps’s Board as it was said it was delivered too late. At the end of September Mr. Passera tired again with his plan saying that he had support from the same private equity firms (who were said to be Atlas Merchant, Warburg Pincus and BC Partners) for about 2-3.5 billion euros (see here a previous post by BeBeez). That plan was presented to the bank last October 13th.
However Mr. Passera delivered a letter to Mps’s Board members and supervisors yesterday explaining that the bank has been putting obstacles all over its way for 20 days in order to disrupt a fair due diligence and fair m&a talks.
Mr. Passera stressed that “the bank said that our proposal would not be strong enough to be presented to the Ecb. Given that a judgement on this issue is a task of the Ecb, we remember that we are talking about a very detailed business plan (that we would have been glad to explain if we were allowed to); we are also talking about official letters signed by primary international investors committing about 2 billion euros (which will be made available to the bank as soon as a non disclosure agreement had been signed)  and about a committement to guarantee therights issue to existing shareholders for about 1-1.5 billion euros“.
In the meantime Mps’s ceo Marco Morelli and cfo Francesco Mele together with their advisors JPMorgan and Mediobanca are travelling all over the world looking for potential investors willing to subscribe the bank capital increase. The bankes have been in Doha (Qatar) and Kuwait City having talks with sovereign funds Qia and Kia, while now they are said to be in New York, meeting Blackrock, Paulson and other hed funds. By mid-November a meeting with Temasek‘s representatives is finally scheduled in Singapore.
At the same time JPMorgan and Mediobanca are arranging a 6 billion euros bridge financing which will enable a planned gross 27.7 billion euros non-performing loan securitization to be launched before the guarantee from the Italian Government (Gacs) to be attached to the senior tranches will be ready by early 2017. The goal is to define the deal structure by mid-November and launch the securitization just after Mps’s shareholders meeting to be held next Nov. 24th, together with the launch of the 5 billion euros capital increase (see here a previous post by BeBeez).
