The Italian authorities wanted to sell a controlling stake in the troubled Banca Monte Dei Paschi di Siena, which is the oldest operating credit institution in the world. About this writes Bloomberg with reference to sources.
The Italian authorities from 2017 own 68 percent of the shares of the credit institution. According to the interlocutors of the agency, the Ministry of Finance is considering selling its stake in UniCredit. The parties have already held preliminary discussions on the idea, but the sale of UniCredit is only one of the possible scenarios. According to Reuters, the Italian authorities want to close the sale deal by the end of 2020.
To make Banca Monte Dei Paschi more attractive to the buyer, the Ministry of Finance is going to transfer 8.1 billion euros of problem debts of the state-controlled asset management company AMCO. In this case, the problem debt of Monte Dei Paschi will be reduced from the current 12 percent to 4.
The Italian government saved the world’s oldest credit institution in 2017 by buying 68 percent of its shares for 5.4 billion euros. The bank faced a capital hole of more than 8 billion amid low-interest rates in Europe, poor profitability, weak economic growth in Italy, and mistakes by top management.
Bank Monte Dei Paschi was founded in 1472 in Siena. It issued cheap loans to the least wealthy sections of the population of the city-state.
