Rome expects to return Monte dei Paschi di Siena into private hands only after the bailed-out lender completes restructuring steps it is currently discussing with European Union authorities, Italy's economy minister said on Monday, Reuters reported. Under new CEO Luigi Lovaglio, Monte dei Paschi (MPS) is revising a 2022-2026 strategic plan readied by previous management which needs approval by European authorities. Economy Minister Daniele Franco told a parliamentary hearing the bank would know once the plan is ready how much money it needs to raise.
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Italian billionaire Gianluigi Aponte’s Mediterranean Shipping Co. will take a minority stake in Moby SpA as the ailing ferry company aims to settle a dispute with creditors and restructure its debt, Bloomberg News reported. MSC, one of the world’s largest container shipping companies, will provide fresh funds to Moby to pay off the administrators of Tirrenia, a unit it bought out of insolvency in 2011, according to a joint statement late Thursday. The firms didn’t disclose the size of the capital increase.
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Italy's biggest bank Intesa Sanpaolo will detail the impact of the Ukraine conflict on its 2022 earnings when it reports first-quarter results in May, its CEO told a financial conference, according to a person who attended the event, Reuters reported. Addressing the Morgan Stanley European Financials conference on Thursday, CEO Carlo Messina confirmed the bank's financial targets but said details on the net income impact for this year would be provided when Intesa next reports earnings.
Intesa Sanpaolo said on Wednesday that its loans to Russian and Ukrainian clients amounted to 5.1 billion euros net of guarantees from credit export agencies, which is around 1% of the total for Italy's biggest bank, Reuters reported. Intesa added in a statement it was analyzing its exposure to Russia and Ukraine to understand how to better handle risks in light of the European Union's decision to phase out Russian fossil fuels by 2027. Of the overall loan figure, some 4 billion euros are cross-border, with oil and gas firms accounting for half of the total.
While debt has been a problem for millennia, contemporary international institutions have focused on alternative dispute resolutions for commercial disputes for only decades, according to an analysis in mediate.com. according to an analysis in mediate.com. In the late ’90s many developing countries experienced financial distress. In 1999, the World Bank began to analyze the problem and in 2001developed the “Insolvency and Creditor Rights Standards” (ICR Standards). The focus was on judicial proceedings. The possibility of resorting to mediation was regarded as entirely residual.
Delta Air Lines Inc. said it’s working with Air France-KLM as the Paris-based airline considers joining in the bidding for a stake in Italy’s state-owned carrier, Bloomberg reported. Italia Tranporto Aereo would be a welcome recruit to the North Atlantic alliance led by Delta, according to Ed Bastian, the U.S. carrier’s chief executive officer. “Air France-KLM is in the lead in terms of actually making a potential investment,” Bastian said in a briefing in London on Tuesday.
Italian paper mills, which make everything from pizza boxes to furniture packaging, ground to a halt as Russia’s war in Ukraine has sent natural gas prices skyrocketing, the Associated Press reported. And it’s not just paper. Italian steel mills likewise turned off electric furnaces last week, and fishermen, facing a huge spikes in oil prices, stayed in port, mending nets instead of casting them. Nowhere more than in Italy, the European Union’s third-largest economy, is dependence on Russian energy taking a higher toll on industry.
Italy's economic growth will be hit by the consequences of the war in Ukraine, including the surging energy costs, Prime Minister Mario Draghi said on Wednesday, Reuters reported. "Growth will certainly be weakened," Draghi told parliament, adding that his government would do everything it could "to mitigate the effects" on households and companies. The government's official forecast for this year, made last autumn, envisages a rise in gross domestic product of 4.7%, but this is now widely considered unrealistic.
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A group of banks led by UniCredit SpA is considering options including a state-backed guarantee for a 850 million euros ($929 million) bridge-loan for troubled Italian engineering firm Saipem SpA, Bloomberg News reported. The team of banks, which includes Intesa Sanpaolo SpA, started discussing the option in a confidential meeting on Tuesday. The banks plan to ask Sace SpA, Italy’s trade-credit insurer, for the guarantee. No final decision has been taken and the plan could change, according to sources.
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Italy plans to set aside 8.7 billion euros ($9.7 billion) until 2030 to support its carmaking industry, a draft decree seen by Reuters showed on Tuesday. As part of a package to support the economy and curb surging energy bills, Italy intends to allocate 700 million euros in 2022 and 1 billion euros per year from 2023 until 2030, the decree showed.
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