Is the Ferrarini dossier for Intesa Sanpaolo and Unicredit completed?
What happens between the Pini group and the consortium led by Bonterre supported by Intesa Sanpaolo and Unicredit to take over Ferrarini
The game is still open between the Pini group and the consortium led by Bonterre, and supported by Intesa Sanpaolo and Unicredit, to take over Ferrarini, the cured meats company in agreement after the collapse of the accounts between 2016 and 2017 which arrived in July 2018 to a negative shareholders' equity of 123 million.
The maxi debt, of approximately 360 million , arose due to wrong investments and loans received by Veneto Banca for the purchase of shares in the bank which then ended up in compulsory administrative liquidation.
The story is also enriched by issues concerning some protagonists, starting with Amco, the former Sga owned by the Ministry of Economy and Finance, which is sided with Pini Holding to take over the Emilian group, led by the former vice president of Confindustria for Europe, Lisa Ferrarini.
THE TWO STRINGS IN THE FIELD
On the one hand, therefore, there is the group of companies owned by Pini Holding, led by Roberto Pini, which is Italian-Hungarian and has its base in Cyprus. Just a year ago, he inaugurated a plant in Binefar, Spain, which allows the slaughter of 160,000 pigs per week. Hence the fear of some observers that production will be relocated to the Iberian country.
In the note released after the presentation of the arrangement with creditors, it is highlighted that Pini Holding "will make its commercial network available worldwide (the same that will soon allow the Group to exceed two billion euros in turnover), allowing Ferrarini to increase in exponentially the range of action abroad and to promote the 'Made in Italy' ".
The group returned to talk on 17 February when an Ansa launch came out according to which Pini "would have paid a deposit of 100 million Polish zlotys (22 million euros) as part of the investigation for tax fraud that has been involved in Poland since 2016 ". To these words replied the son of the entrepreneur, Roberto Pini, who is also the director and owner of Pini Holding. "The bail for the investigation opened in Poland was paid between 2016 and the first months of 2017. The investigation is still ongoing – he explained – and has not yet reached the first degree of judgment and there my father plans to demonstrate his innocence and extraneousness from the facts. We learn with amazement and bewilderment that the Hungarian and Italian media are relaunching as new news that dates back to years ago. There is someone who wants to poison the wells to undermine our credibility and we will not allow it. I want to reiterate that Pini Holding has no ties with companies in Poland and Hungary and that it is a market leader at a European level and one of the main players at a global level with over a billion in turnover, of which 50% developed in Italy, and over two thousand employees around the world ".
THE ROLE OF INTESA SANPAOLO AND UNICREDIT
Also contending for Ferrarini are Intesa Sanpaolo and Unicredit who have filed with the court of Reggio Emilia a new proposal for an arrangement to save and relaunch Ferrarini's activities together with the industrial partners of the Bonterre-Grandi Salumifici Italiani group, OPAS and HP. In the joint note issued on the occasion, it was emphasized that the consortium "will make entrepreneurial skills and capital injections available to the operation, together with the financial support of Intesa Sanpaolo with an amount of 35 million euros available for the duration of the Industrial Plan introduced". It should be remembered that already in November 2019 Intesa Sanpaolo had presented a plan to take over Ferrarini in a consortium with the Bonferre-Grandi salumifici group, with Opas (product organization between pig farmers) and with the Apulian group Casillo participations. The offer had to be submitted by December 22, but a month earlier the bank led by Carlo Messina had pulled out. In January 2020, however, the first rumors that gave her ready to return to the office together with Unicredit. A fact that materialized in August 2020.
THE ROLE OF AMCO
The role of Amco stands out in the dispute, which – as indicated by Ferrarini – will make new finance available and enter the capital of the investment vehicle, called Rilancio Industrie Agroalimentari Srl, with a 20% stake, replacing the credits claimed by the company with shares. ex Sga towards the Luxembourg companies which are shareholders of Ferrarini SpA with respect to which the Pini group is jointly obliged. In its capacity, Amco will be able to designate members of corporate bodies and heads of control functions, acting as a strategic partner in the turnaround. The presence of Amco should also ensure that "in the future there will be no lack of conditions to maintain and, indeed, increase employment levels, as has always happened in the important initiatives in Italy of the Pini Group, which for years has been investing in the national territory by successfully relaunching , companies in difficulty, without ever having relocated their activities abroad ".
WHAT NATALE (AMCO) SAID IN THE COMMISSION OF INVESTIGATION ON THE BANKING SYSTEM
On February 3, the CEO of Amco, Marina Natale, was heard in the bicameral commission of inquiry on the banking and financial system and, among other things, she was asked why she decided to support the composition proposal presented by the group. Pini on 31 August 2020 and not the one presented by Bonterre and the others on 10 August. The CEO stated that a comparison was made between the two offers but Senator Massimo Ferro (FI) and deputy Giulio Centemero (Lega) pointed out that the Amco resolution is dated May 25, while the Bonterre and others proposal is of 10 August.
Furthermore, they pointed out, Natale stated that "the Pini proposal involves a creditors 'satisfaction of 30% entirely in cash while the competing proposal provides a creditors' satisfaction of 10.41% of which only one third in cash and instead does not contemplate the payment "in cash" of course at the time of execution of the arrangement with creditors, but payment is foreseen in cash only if and when the industrial plan underlying the Pini proposal, articulated over a period of seven years, will be successful ". After that “it is true that if the plan is successful, the payment will be 'in cash' but success is by no means guaranteed but simply hypothesized by an asseverator such as Dr. Federico Bacchiega of Modena ".
For these reasons, the two parliamentarians consider it appropriate "to ask for further precise and circumscribed answers from the CEO to the commission", "the prior transmission by Amco of all the acts and documents at its disposal concerning the Ferrarini affair" and finally " evaluate – if it is confirmed that there are statements that do not conform to the truth – the sending of a report to the Judicial Authority on the facts referred to in the session of 3 February 2021 described above ".
AT WHAT POINT IS THE LEGAL BATTLE
In recent months, as Business Insider recounts, two salient events have also occurred. Last September, the Bonterre consortium presented a complaint to the Competition Division of the EU Commission related to the participation of Amco and in the same period Ferrarini spa filed an appeal with the Court of Cassation against the decree issued by the Court of Appeal of Bologna which had declared the incompetence of the court of Reggio Emilia on the composition procedure, which was then transferred to Bologna. The sentence of the cassation is therefore awaited, which will have to establish which court is competent to approve the arrangement.
Meanwhile, according to Business Insider , in 2020 the gross operating margin of Ferrarini spa is estimated at ten million and "from circles close to the Ferrarini family they explain that proof of the fact that the company is doing well is that the employees are all direct, without resorting to cooperatives ".
THE FORBIDDEN PROPERTIES
Meanwhile, the banks are taking an interest in the food group for other reasons as well. For example, Unicredit obtained the foreclosure of about 20 properties belonging to the Ferrarini family, including the company's headquarters in Rivaltella. The green light was given by the court for real estate executions of Reggio Emilia to a loan granted in 2003 by Bipop-Carire, a group later acquired by Piazza Gae Aulenti. The residual amount is equal to 1.7 million that the bank wants to collect with the foreclosure of the assets that are now owned by the founder's widow, Lina Botti, and which should not have repercussions on the agreements. However, it is likely that the parties will find a way to pay off the remaining debt while avoiding foreclosure.
It should be remembered that one of Ferrarini's major creditors is Amco, which inherited Veneto Banca's impaired loans from Sga.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/economia/ferrarini-intesa-sanpaolo-unicredit-amco-pini/ on Sun, 04 Apr 2021 05:11:30 +0000.