Collapses in Piazza Affari the title BFF Banka company active in specialized finance and listed on Euronext Milan, after the Bank of Italy has arranged the temporary suspension of the distribution of profits, or other elements of the assets, after the outcome of the inspection conducted on the institution regarding its management of public credits. The Italian regulator has also ordered that BFF refrain from paying the variable part of the remuneration and from further expanding operations abroad, through the opening of new branches or the expansion into new countries under the provision of services regime.
The CEO Massimiliano Belingheriduring the call with the financial community, said that the Board of Directors – based on preliminary assessments and subject to further analysis – believes that the possible increase in RWA and prudential calendar provisioning, which could derive from this interpretation, “does not translate into a substantial change in the economic-financial prospects of the bankalso taking into account the off-balance sheet reserves of 628 million euros and the management actions that may be undertaken”.
Pressed by analysts on the matter, Belingheri explained that “there are many factors to consider and there is a discussion with the regulatorwhich obviously cannot happen in public, but there are many ways to respond to the BOI’s findings and in any case we have a good level of capital.”
“There bank is committed to responding in 60 daysbut we cannot control the response of the Bank of Italy”, he underlined. According to the slides, BFF must respond by July 24 and then the Bank of Italy will make its final decision.
To those who pointed out to him that the Bank of Italy’s response to the problems is very severe, he replied: “It is not up to us to answer why a compliance findingwithout indication of any increase in credit risk, must stop dividends“.
“There is no credit risk, but we could have an increase in RWA and therefore more capital could be needed”, said the CEO, who said he was comforted by the fact that “the investigation was done in January, the bank has paid the dividend and then the Bank of Italy provided us with the report with its decisions strong responsebut therefore also a incentive for everyone to resolve it quickly“.
Belingheri doesn’t see changes to the dividend policyalso because the bank has “a solid reserve of capital and the ability to generate new capital”.
The BFF title is in volatility auction for several hours, after recording a drop of 10.31%.
