Troubled Genoa-based bank Carige
was placed into extraordinary administration by the European
Central Bank Wednesday after most of its board quit after
Italy's 10th-biggest bank failed to secure shareholder support
for a 400 million euro share issue last month.
The administrators will be Carige former CEO Fabio Innocenzi,
former chairman Pietro Modiano, and Rome Tor Vergata and Luiss
universities' lecturer in financial law, Raffaele Lener, the ECB
said.
The ECB said they had been "tasked with safeguarding the
stability" of the bank.
Bourse regulator CONSOB suspended trading in Carige at the
bank's request.
The European Commission will closely monitor the situation at
Carige, an EC spokesman told ANSA Wednesday.
"As always we closely monitor developments in the EU banking
sector, Italy included," the spokesman said.
"We duly note the ECB's decision, in its capacity as
supervisor, to name a temporary administrator for Carige" as one
of the moves available thanks to banking union, he said.
Italian banks have made "significant progress" in recent
years, the spokesman added.
The work must continue but non-performing loans (NPLs) have
been substantially reduced, he said.
Italy's Interbank Deposit Protection Fund (FITD) on Wednesday
said Carige needed to merge with another bank to pull it out of
its current crisis.
FITD chief Salvatore Maccarone told ANSA the fund "backed"
the ECB's move "because it will serve to carry forward the
original plan, a merger with another bank".
He said the failure of Carige's capital call last month "is
proof that the overall governance mechanism has got stuck, and
therefore this (ECB-ordered administration) is the only thing
that could have been done".
The ECB's move comes after years of troubles for Italian
banks.
Six small, regional banks have had to be rescued in recent
years, with ordinary savers losing billions of euros.
Big banks also got into trouble with the third-biggest and
world's oldest, Monte dei Paschi di Siena (MPS), undergoing
precautionary recapitalisation after racking up too many bad
loans.
MPS, founded in 1472, is recovering from its crisis.
Carige, founded in 1483, has 529 branches across Italy with
one branch in France, in Nice.
About 37.2% branches are located in its home region of
Liguria.
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