How JPMorgan could not save Italy’s problem bank
MILAN/ LONDON: On the morning of July 29, former Italian Industry Minister Corrado Passera was travelling in a highspeed train towards the medieval city of Siena, racing to meet the directors of the world’s oldest bank to present them with a rescue plan.
Monte dei Paschi di Siena, Italy’s third-largest lender, was destined to be wound down within months unless it could raise billions of euros and pull itself out of a swamp of bad loans that threatened to swallow up its five centuries of banking.
Passera’s recapital isation plan was supported by Swiss investment bank UBS – Monte dei Paschi’s long-time adviser – but the former minister was running out of time.
The Tuscan lender had already changed advisory horses - turning away from UBS and Citi, and instead engaging JPMorgan to engineer a survival strategy, according to bankers close to the matter.
Its board was meeting that day at its HQ in a 13th-century fortress to decide whether to formally commit to the Wall Street player’s plan, they said.
Veteran banker Passera felt he would at least have a chance to make his case. He didn’t.
As the train reached Florence, about 70 km from Siena, his phone rang. Monte dei Paschi’s chairman told him the board would not hear him, according to a source familiar with the events.
The bank had instead pinned its fate on JPMorgan’s plan to clear out 28 billion euros ( US$29 billion) in bad debts and raise 5 billion euros in equity – one that ended in failure in the early hours of Friday when the Tuscan lender said it could not find enough investors and asked the government to bail it out. — Reuters