Unicredit, all (or almost) on Andrea Orcel who will replace Mustier
According to Ansa, Andrea Orcel will replace Jean-Pierre Mustier in Unicredit. Who is Orcel and who is betting (especially Del Vecchio) on him. Does the Treasury grumble?
The knot on the new CEO of Unicredit is dissolved and we move towards the appointment of Andrea Orcel in the place left by Jean Pierre Mustier.
This is what Ansa has learned from financial sources.
EXTRACT FROM A START ARTICLE SIGNED BY ARNESE E SOTO ON UNICREDIT AND ANDREA ORCEL:
In pole position to take the place of the French banker, there seems to be Andrea Orcel who would also be appreciated by the shareholder Leonardo Del Vecchio and the shareholder foundations (Cariverona and Cassa Risparmio di Torino).
A perfect candidate, according to some (even for the Treasury? Who knows): Italian but with curriculum and contacts of international standing. However, Orcel's wealth of experience risks being cumbersome also in light of possible negotiations to be restarted with Monte.
Because his name, for the Sienese, is still linked to Antonveneta's original sin: it was he, when he was still president of the "global markets & investment banking" division in the London office of Merrill Lynch, the director of the Abn Amro stew who delivered the Paduan bank to Banco Santander and then in November 2007 to Monte. Of which a month later, in December 2007, Merrill became joint global coordinator of the financing operation linked to the blitz on the Venetian bank.
The former president of MPS, Giuseppe Mussari, negotiated through Orcel with Emilio Botín, the great head of Santander who needed money to acquire the Dutch bank Abn Amro with Royal Bank Scotland and Fortis. So Botin sold in November 2007 to Mussari for 9 billion plus 7 billion in debt that Antonveneta that just four weeks earlier he had bought from Abn Amro for 6.6 billion. A circumstance that, they say in the salons of finance, must have cemented the bond between Orcel and the Botin family.
So much so that in September 2018 Ana Botin, Emilio's daughter who later became president of Santander, publicly promised him the appointment at the helm of the Spanish Bank with an entry bonus that the chronicles of the time say reached the stellar figure of 50 million euros. The thing seems done, in newspapers all over Europe there are celebratory articles with the profile of what someone went so far as to paint as "the Ronaldo of the bankers".
Too bad that the promised bonus is too high even for one of the largest banks in the world and that, despite Botin's announcement, the appointment will never see the light due to the opposition of the board. The case arouses such an outcry that Santander's shareholder funds come to ask for the head of the president who is forced to acknowledge the mistake and apologize publicly at the April 2019 shareholders' meeting.
As for Orcel, he unleashes a legal dispute that is still open which materializes in the request for 112 million in compensation from the Iberian bank.
Perhaps also for this past, yesterday in the Senate the leader of Italia Viva, Matteo Renzi, while scrambling Giuseppe Conte (who, however, did not fall or did not bend as the former prime minister hoped), hissed at those who "must buy Monte dei Paschi di Siena relying on the same consultants who twenty years ago made enough messes ”.
However, if the final choice falls on Orcel, the Roman banker would work alongside the president Pier Carlo Padoan (still in pectore because his appointment must be approved by the shareholders in the spring assembly) with an equally cumbersome past because under him the Mef has took control of Rocca Salimbeni with the precautionary recapitalization and the institute became the "Monte di Stato".
The arrival of Padoan in Unicredit was therefore read by many observers as a prodromal to the marriage with that Monte which the Treasury does not know what to do, caught between the promises made to Europe during the rescue and a market operation that at the moment it does not exist.
We must avoid that Mps is the new Capitalia for Unicredit, some analysts say. Well, who was at the helm of Merrill Lynch's Financial Institution Group team when he advised Unicredit on the purchase of Capitalia as an advisor? Andrea Orcel.
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EXTRACT FROM ANARTICLE BY UGO BERTONE FOR FORBES ON ANDREA ORCEL:
Andrea Orcel, born in 1963, Roman by birth, but a citizen of the world at the time of global finance who does not give breaks to those who choose his profession (or his mission?). "A vocation that is not for everyone", as he replied when, in 2013, after the death of a Bank of America assistant victim of overwork, an international appeal was launched to introduce time limits for junior bankers . But it is not made of ice, assures a portrait of the Financial Times: “It doesn't take long for it to start shouting insults, revealing its Italian character”.
This and more can be read in the entry dedicated to the former enfant prodige of world finance, who grew up in Goldman Sachs and Merrill Lynch before joining UBS and ending up in a tug-of-war with the top management of Banco Santander, who refused to honor the salary agreed with Ana Botìn: 50 million euros, perhaps something more than what Ronaldo earns. Orcel didn't take it well and filed a $ 112 million lawsuit against Europe's most powerful bank. Which perhaps owes him something, because thanks to Orcel, Ana's father was able to sell Banca Antonveneta to Monte dei Paschi for 9 billion cash – plus another 7 billion in debt – before the outbreak of the 2007-2008 crisis.
Nobody disputes the qualities of the investment banker, who can boast an exceptional curriculum: in his early thirties, he played a key role in the birth of Unicredit, finalizing the merger with Credito Italiano. Immediately after, he was the architect of the birth of Bbva, the second Spanish group. Passed from Goldman Sachs to Merrill Lynch, he works on the “masterpiece”: the stew from the Dutch Abn Amro, with the involvement of the Belgian Fortis, the Spanish Banco Santander and the Royal Bank of Scotland. The operation ends with the default of the British bank, saved at a very high price by the London Treasury, and of the Belgian Fortis. The Spanish bank is saved thanks to the sale of Antonveneta to Monte dei Paschi, overwhelmed by this bad deal and today in the hands of the Italian Treasury, which, to respect the agreements with the European Central Bank, will have to sell 64% of the bailout.
A massacre, but not for Orcel: the American investigation into investment banks following the crashes of the subprime season will ascertain that Orcel has grossed 33 million dollars in commissions. Nothing illegal, for heaven's sake. Indeed, Orcel, adviser to bankers and powerful, at the time of Alessandro Profumo's resignation is contacted for the position of CEO of Unicredit. He's the one who turns down the job, given the distance between his earnings and the banker's salary.
Today things seem to have changed. Orcel gave his availability, giving in to the flattery of Leonardo Del Vecchio, owner of Essilor Luxottica and major shareholder of Mediobanca. Del Vecchio, a partner of Credito Italiano since the time of privatization, has a strong link, even historical, with Unicredit, his bank of reference since the time of Lucio Rondelli, who convinced him to bring Luxottica to Wall Street in the mid-nineties, in net advance on the Italian system. Del Vecchio is the great enemy of the marriage between Unicredit and Monte dei Paschi, despite having a conspicuous dowry. Why sacrifice the most important international financial reality to plug the holes of the past? Here we need a man with ambitions and an international vision. As Orcel, in fact, opposed for the bad precedents in the land of Siena.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/economia/unicredit-tutto-o-quasi-su-andrea-orcel/ on Tue, 26 Jan 2021 15:47:02 +0000.