Mps, Carige, Popolare di Bari. All the weights of Amco (Treasury)
Balance sheet in chiaroscuro for the Amco company of the Ministry of Economy according to the Court of Auditors. The weight of the credits purchased by Mps, Carige and Popolare di Bari. Full details
The one closed by Amco in 2021 is a chiaroscuro year according to the Court of Auditors , which presented a report on the financial statements of the company acquired by the Ministry of Economy and Finance in 2017 following the financial crisis of Veneto Banca and Banca Popolare di Vicenza and the need to manage their non-performing loans and recover the related exposures.
As we said, lights and shadows: if in fact the accounting judiciary notes the "good performance of the general non-performing loan management activities, with significant growth in volumes" it also highlights the weight of Montepaschi on the coffers of the public company led by CEO, Marina Christmas (pictured). The financial effect following the revaluation of the positions of the portfolio acquired by Siena at the end of 2020, in fact, led to a net loss of 419.3 million.
In total, as at 31 December 2021, assets under management amounted to €32.5 billion, down by €1.7 billion compared to the previous year.
INCOME STATEMENT AND BALANCE SHEET DATA
According to the data released by the Court of Auditors in 2021, among the active components, interest income and expense grew by 83.6 and 91.3%, with a further increase in the interest margin of 78%. The incidence of administrative costs (+118%) on the overall size of the balance sheet was confirmed as "significant", as was the increase (+92%) in operating costs.
In terms of balance sheet data, 2021 assets fell to approximately 6.1 billion euros, down 10.3% compared to 2020, and shareholders' equity down 15% to 2,394,010,320 euros. Even the data of the consolidated financial statements, the Court points out, show a decrease in assets (from 6,900,373,000 euros in 2020 to 6,187,592,000 in 2021), although slightly higher, overall, than those of individual assets, above all thanks the growth of financial assets valued at amortized cost.
In 2021 the volume of financial liabilities increased compared to the individual financial statements with the consolidated figure of shareholders' equity improving compared to the individual one, due to the increase in profit, the share premium and the Monte dei Paschi di Siena operation.
Finally, as regards the management and recovery of credits transferred to the Segregated Assets of the former Veneto banks, the cash flows retroceded by Amco amounted to a total of 639 million, of which 357 million relating to the Vicenza Group and 282 million to the Vicenza Group. Veneto Banca, up compared to 2020 (431 million). The 2021 management data also improved, with collections rising to 665 million euros compared to 612 million the previous year.
THE MONTEPASCHI PROBLEM
The most problematic node for Amco, and the Court of Auditors makes it clear in the Report on 2021 results, remains the Sienese bank of which non-performing loans were purchased through a partial spin-off operation of a branch of the credit institution (completed on 1 December 2020).
The accounting judiciary recalls that, due to the complexity and financial dimension of the operation, during the preparation of the report on the 2020 financial year, it requested an in-depth analysis "on the obligations carried out to carry out the effective taking charge and the start of the management of the receivables acquired" and instead postponed "the analysis of the accounting and financial impact of the portfolio as a whole on the corporate financial statements to the subsequent examination of the accounting documents relating to 2021" because the demerger was carried out "in continuity of book values". Therefore, only with the approval of the 2021 budget was it possible to quantify the financial effects of the Rocca portfolio evaluation process.
At the end of this operation, an overall net adjustment on receivables and securities of 528.6 million euros emerged, which resulted in a net statutory loss of 419.3 million euros. Amco resolved to cover this negative result by drawing on the demerger reserve. "In the light of the elements represented – reads the Report – it must be noted that the Company (Amco, ed) has been called upon to face an absolutely significant operational effort, not only deriving from the large amount of the portfolio acquired, but also consequential to the technical methods – juridical through which the acquisition operation was carried out. An operation which, on the other hand, falls within the group of interventions having institutional economic/financial significance, as such congruent with the presence of a totalitarian public shareholder and, at the same time, responds to the continuing need of the banking system to allocate the debt exposures that are more difficult to collect from specialized market operators".
CREDIT MANAGEMENT OF CARIGE AND BANCA POPOLARE DI BARI
The situation as regards Carige and Popolare di Bari is different but still articulated. The Court recalls that Amco subscribed the capital increase of 700 million euro, proposed by the liquidators of the Ligurian bank in September 2019. This choice was also dictated "by the concomitant development of a project for the acquisition of a portfolio of NPEs (non-performing exposures) of the institution itself”. Amco therefore acquired a first package of positions belonging to a single group, for a gross book value of 227 million euro and, subsequently, another tranche of receivables for a gross book value of 54 million euro, classified as sufferings.
Amco, reports the Court of Auditors, highlighted that the health crisis due to the pandemic also had repercussions in 2021, above all due to the slowdown in executive activities in the judiciary. In 2021, Carige's portfolio decreased overall by 75 million euros but in the first half of 2022, according to reports from Amco, there would have been "signs of recovery".
As regards the trend in receipts, it fell from 84 million in 2020 to 75 million in 2021 but we note "improving data already in the first half of 2022", at 40 million.
Gross book value of approximately 2.1 billion, referring to 32 thousand debtors, for Banca Popolare di Bari. On an operational level, Amco "confirmed the difficult scenario, caused by the health crisis, described in relation to the management of the loans acquired from Banca Carige" underlines the accounting judiciary which, however, for collections, shows an increase in the results of 2021 (69 million) compared to 2020 (30 million) and "an equally positive trend" for the first half of 2022 (38 million).
THE INCREASE IN AMCO'S EXPENSES
Despite the heavy loss due to the revaluation of Montepaschi's credit portfolio, Amco saw the number of employees grow to 342 (from 287 in 2020) of whom 20 are managers (17 in 2020), 229 middle managers (184 in 2020) and 93 employees (86 in 2020). Of the workforce, 61% of whom are men, only 4 people are employed on fixed-term contracts.
The recruitment of new resources obviously increased personnel expenditure, which rose to 39.9 million from the 29.9 million of the previous year.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/economia/amco-bilancio-2021-corte-dei-conti/ on Tue, 28 Mar 2023 10:04:14 +0000.