Carige, Malacalza leaves the board

Genoa - Carige is back in the red for the first half of the year, and its board of directors has lost Vittorio Malacalza, the bank’s largest shareholder, who announced his resignation at the shareholders’ meeting and made it effective yesterday.

The Ligurian bank closed the first six months of the year with losses of €20.5 million, after having returned to profitability in the first quarter. However, the bank’s results have improved compared to the more than €158 million of red ink that was seen for the same period last year; but the Stock Exchange was not impressed, and yesterday Carige stock closed down 3.3%.

The Bank says that its balance sheets have improved, but the accounting result has been dragged down “by inheritances from the past”, in particular “because of compensation and penalties claimed by Amissima”.

The “deteriorated credit positions on credit lines granted before 2014 and sold or written off in the second quarter” also had an impact. Without these two difficulties, CEO Paolo Fiorentino pointed out at yesterday’s meeting of the board of directors, the normalized result would have been positive at 20.2 million. For this reason, the manager is convinced that he can achieve the objectives set by the ECB even without having to issue the 350 million bond.

The interim president after the resignation of Giuseppe Tesauro, and largest shareholder with 20% of the shares, Vittorio Malacalza, has announced his resignation from the board of directors. The dispute is not about the balance sheet, according to Il Secolo XIX’s sources, but rather the final act that was the clash over governance decisions made by Paolo Fiorentino. However, other members of the “block” that supported the businessman did not follow suit: rather his decision to leave was anticipated by the announcement of the departure of Francesca Balzani, who did not participate in yesterday’s meeting.

The majority shareholder is thus preparing for the battle that will take place at the shareholders’ meeting to be held on 20 September, as established by the board. This means that by the end of August, the lists of councillors will be known, and the picture of the alliances in the clash between Malacalza and Raffaele Mincione - the financier who challenged the bank’s ownership - will be clearer.

The counterattack against European supervision is almost ready. Yesterday, the Board of Directors was unable to finalize its letter in response to the ECB, but a new meeting has already been called for 7 August for the remaining directors to complete it. On the same day Carige will choose the best offer for the sale of 400 million in UTP (unlikely to pay) credit and will unburden itself of another liability after it sells 127 million in NPLs.

In the last six months, Banca Carige recorded an increased intake of approximately one billion euros from both direct and indirect business. And according to the bank, the impact of small and medium-sized companies is significant: a sign of a return to the territory. The sale of the stake that Carige holds in Autostrada dei Fiori, on the other hand, will take longer and the sale of its stake in Bankitalia will take place in September.