Italy's Atlante to Buy 92% Stake in Banca Popolare di Vicenza
May 01 2016 - 8:20PM
Dow Jones News
Italy's newly created backstop fund for banks, Atlante, is set
to buy a stake of around 92% in Banca Popolare di Vicenza SpA after
investors shunned the troubled lender's cash call, but could end up
owning roughly the total of Vicenza's capital.
The bank said in a statement late on Saturday that investors
placed orders for only 7.7% of the €1.5 billion ($1.72 billion) of
new shares the bank put up for sale in an initial public offering
imposed by the European Central Bank, which found Vicenza short of
regulatory capital last year.
Atlante pledged to buy Vicenza's unsold shares, replacing
UniCredit SpA, which was the initial underwriter of the
transaction.
The fund, which has a total war-chest of €4.25 billion, is meant
to back capital increases at Italian banks imposed by regulators by
buying all shares that remain unsold.
It also plans to buy bad loans from Italian banks at higher
prices than normally offered by investors in a bid to kick-start a
market for these assets and help lenders get rid of soured
loans.
At this stage, Vicenza may not have enough free-float capital to
receive clearance from Italy's stock exchange to start listing next
week.
According to the Italian bourse rules, a company needs to have
at least 25% in free-float capital to be given a green light to
list, but the exchange can make exceptions. Vicenza planned to
start listing next week.
If Vicenza doesn't obtain authorization from the stock exchange
to list, the orders placed by investors will be invalid and Atlante
will underwrite the whole €1.5 billion rights issue, Vicenza said,
ending up owning 99.3% of the bank's capital.
A person familiar with the matter said Mediobanca SpA, which is
part of the pool of banks coordinating the sale, placed orders for
around 5% of the shares. Mediobanca declined to comment.
On Monday, the Italian exchange is set to decide if there is
enough free- float for the bank to start listing.
Write to Giovanni Legorano at giovanni.legorano@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
May 01, 2016 21:05 ET (01:05 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2016 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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