The governor of the Bank of Italy, Fabio Panettahe doesn’t say it but he thinks it: it’s worse than the Superbonus, first for public accounts and then for the banks themselves. In fact, the bubble in insurance guarantees granted to businesses during Covid risks bursting. Another gift from hot couple Conte-Gualtieri, reiterated by the trio of wonders Draghi-Franco-Giavazzi. A Made in Italy version of the show is therefore staged The big betfilm about the 2007-2008 subprime mortgage crisis in America.
The comparison terrifies Meloni and Giorgetti, they could be at stake up to 300 billion in bank credits guaranteed by Sace and Mediocredito Centrale. Both Sace, through “Garanzia Italia”, and MCC, with the “SME Guarantee Fund”, starting from 2020 have provided guarantees to banks that granted financing to businesses, large and small, with coverage from 90 to 70% depending on turnover and number of employees. However, things seem to have gotten out of hand because they continued well beyond the end of the pandemic emergency. Another bomb therefore on the state accounts ready to explode and blow up the public budget.
As well as the Superbonus also “Garanzia Italia”, by Sace, was born under the star of the Conte government (Minister of Economy Roberto Gualtieri) in the “Liquidity” decree. The mechanism has contributed to removing responsibility from both the rigorous assessment of credit merit and the credit management itself, also allowing for the lightening of provisions which in part have produced the bank extra profits known to all. The Sace president at the time, Rodolfo Error, he had fought to ensure that “the Guarantee” was not wasted like a rain by also postponing a loan to the former Fiat; instead Sace also offered guarantees to companies whose creditworthiness sounded like friendship and this was also the case for some sectors that Sace itself considered dangerous.
Some examples: from the 4.95 billion guarantees to support the fossil energy sector only in 2023 in full development phase, on the contrary, of the green economy; to the Cimolai case, from what emerges the largest single entity to which Sace has given the green light to an agreement, being exposed for 134 million euros; up to Benetton, granting 135 million euros, yet the bad management of the company has been denounced in recent days by the owner family itself. The Court of Auditors itself, in its annual report “reaffirms the need for the corporate bodies and the shareholder to carefully monitor the evolution of the concentration of risks assumed by Sace”.
Alessandra RicciCEO of Sace and apparently in bad relations with Palazzo Chigi and with Cassa Depositi e Prestiti, before taking up his current position by appointment of former minister Daniele Franco, she was responsible for “Garanzia Italia”. Consolidating the fear in Sace’s 2023 budget, only announced in a press release but never published, is the CEO’s decision to remove highly experienced managers. Among these is the CFO Michele De Capitanireplaced by Chiara Maruccio who – denying the many comments read online that her career at Sace is slow – has had two promotions in just two years: in 2023 she becomes Chief Risk Officer and in March 2024 CFO, in direct relationship with Ricci who also removed Cristina MorelliManaging Director Business Corporate, in Sace since 1998 and appreciated by the board and the president Filippo Giansantewho is also in disgrace today.
It is added to the list Simonetta Acri and Letterio (known as Erio) Merlin. The “head cutter” has also prepared a permanent smart working plan at the expense of the efficiency of the practices and whose slowness is noted by all stakeholders. Ricci, who grew up in the shadow of the Democratic Party, is now looking for a new position and to the general amazement she was seen hopping at the convention of the 30th anniversary of Forza Italia. Moreover, broadening the topic, the canary in the mine that serves to test the air quality of public interventions on the credit market seems truly dead. AMCO, the public company that took over a large part of the credit portfolios of the banks in difficulty, wrote it down by 422 million out of 529 million in value in 2021. Not bad for a company that when doing well produces profits of 42 million.
The company was born from a theory of the Bank of Italy which to hide its own supervisory shortcomings had convinced the Italian government that the secondary market for problem loans was prey to unscrupulous speculators and with a “patient approach” the credits transferred from the banks to the State would be valorised. The truth is that AMCO’s losses are state aid in disguise and not sustainable in the long term, a superbonus for the banks, a pitiful veil for Bank of Italy. But the dead canary is an alarm signal for all the support and incentive policies implemented with the intervention of the State, which at the first sign of difficulty of the financed companies ends up being subjected to the enforcement of the Sace and MCC guarantees by the banks . To the General Accounting Office and the economic office of Palazzo Chigi directed by Renato Loiero the alarm went off, they understood that they were faced with a new potential Super Hole after that of the building bonuses, only this time the quantification is not easy and is potentially explosive.
Perhaps precisely for this reason and after the problematic mission to Italy of the International Monetary Fund, Minister Giancarlo Giorgetti is about to throw in the towel: he does not want to become the scapegoat for his predecessors a few months after an unmanageable financial situation.
Luigi Bisignani for Il Tempo 2 June 2024
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