Carige returns to the stock exchange after two and a half years. Unable to price the securities, the bank is still at risk

After two and a half years Carige is back on the stock exchange. Tomorrow the debut on the list and there is an immediate risk of confusion. In view of the start of trading, Borsa Italiana has prohibited the placing of orders without price limits on shares and warrants (options to buy and / or sell securities, ed) of Banca Carige. The provision, reads a stock exchange notice, will remain in force “until further notice” and aims to stem the volatility that could affect the stock tomorrow. In the prospectus on the readmission, Carige had warned that the price that the shares and warrants will have when they return to the Stock Exchange “It cannot be determined in any way” and that “there is a risk that, starting from the readmission to trading, the price of the shares and therefore also of the shares issued in execution of the 2019 capital increase, may fluctuate considerably “.

Carige’s securities have been out of trading since the beginning of 2019, after the commissioning by the European Central Bank. The return to the stock exchange does not mean that the Ligurian bank’s troubles are over, quite the contrary. Despite the commissioner’s management and a patrimonial maneuver from 900 million euros. Without a merger “The future of the small institute remains very uncertain” as stated in the listing prospectus. In order to comply with the capital requirements imposed by the ECB, the bank will in any case need a further recapitalization of 400 million.

“The recovery and relaunch process” of the bank “has not yet been completed” so “there are significant uncertainties regarding the prospect of business continuity”, the document continues, which underlines how the business combination represents “an essential action to to complete the bank bailout process initiated by the commissioners to conclude. Although the Fitd (the bank deposit protection fund, ed), which holds 80% of the capital, has given mandate to Deutsche Bank to find a buyer, “there is no certainty about if and when” the merger will take place.

The market looks to Bper and Banco Bpm as possible buyers. But for anyone Carige remains a dossier to be handled with extreme caution. The 2021 objectives of the industrial plan, already downsized first in February and then in May, “Are not confirmed”, since Carige is not able to say if it will be able to fill the accumulated differences, especially on the revenue front. The Red of 84 million expected by the end of the year could prove to be larger. As for 2022 and 2023, the objectives of a positive gross result and a return to profit (29 million) remain confirmed, but without “certainty” about their achievement.

The contrast with the picture does not reassure the picture the Malacalza family, that in the Ligurian institute burned hundreds of millions. In November, the sentence of the cause will arrive the former reference shareholder asks for € 539 million in damages, contesting the validity of the shareholders’ meeting on the 700 million increase. Carige, who filed a counterclaim for 229 million, considers the risk of losing to be “remote” and has not set aside anything, excluding an “unfavorable evolution” of the dispute from the plan’s forecasts.

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