Who and how is pulling the top of Banca Ifis
The head of Banca Ifis, Geertman, will not have to disappoint the expectations of the shareholders, first of all the Fürstenberg Fassio family, which has already sent pressing messages on dividends to the new CEO.
A new CEO who aims at tactical operations and at maintaining the serenity of his Banca Ifis, which has long been very active in the Npl securitization sector. The newcomer Frederik Geertman will also have to ensure the return on capital, as requested by the vice president and CEO of the first shareholder of the bank, Ernesto Fürstenberg Fassio.
WHO IS THE NEW CEO
Fifty-year-old Dutch, Geertman has been deputy general manager and chief commercial officer of Ubi Banca since 2016. Previously he worked in Unicredit where he held various positions including that of Head of Global Marketing and Segment Management for various European countries and head of the Italian network of branches for Families and SMEs. It was co-opted into Banca Ifis last January. For Geertman – who in his first meeting as the head of the board of the credit institution approved the 2020 financial statements and established a dividend of 0.47 euros per share – an important deadline will be the end of the year when the presentation of the industrial plan is expected.
GEERTMAN'S PURPOSES AND GOALS
As reported by Il Sole 24 Ore , at the end of the board of directors Geertman traced his path at the helm of Banca Ifis starting from a “no to large transformative mergers” because there is no “need to grow in size”. The new CEO, on the other hand, aims at “tactical operations, to be carried out quickly, with two characteristics: developing attractive businesses that leverage our ability and ability to add value” and “absolute rigor in the return on capital”. As for the expansion abroad, Geertman does not exclude it but only in sectors "already known" or "adjacent". Eyes also focused on short-medium term credit to finance working capital, where “there are established players who preside over niches. We will evaluate in that area if there is something to strengthen ourselves ”and on NPLs where there are“ slightly different specializations than ours where we will evaluate ”any possibilities. Certainly, points out the Confindustria newspaper, Geertman “aims to make a decisive change from the technological point of view of the bank. And at the same time it is also looking at solutions that can lighten the impact of calendar provisioning on capital, perhaps with securitization transactions ”while there should be no major changes in management.
As regards the internal situation, reports Milano Finanza , for the new CEO the bank is “very serene, albeit very attentive and aware of the fact that we are still in a transitory phase. The provisions made last year are absolutely sufficient to manage 2021 and the following years ". Furthermore, Geertman said, “our credit is largely short-term, this generally does not lend itself to hiding surprises and therefore we have a perfect understanding of our portfolio. On the other hand, in the medium to long term we have a very fragmented portfolio, distributed over small amounts and very diversified in terms of sectors. As for the moratoriums, we have initiated dialogue with customers and the feedback is positive. Therefore, we will not have any unpleasant surprises in the long term either ”.
WHO THE SHAREHOLDERS ARE AND WHAT THEY ASK
Geertman will also be called upon not to disappoint the expectations of the shareholders and in particular of Scogliera spa, the holding company that controls Banca Ifis with 50.50% (48.85% is instead in the hands of the market). Scogliera spa is in the hands of the Fürstenberg Fassio family, in which the heir Ernesto is emerging. Forty-year-old, Genoese, with a degree in Law from Padua and a master's degree from Bocconi, he has been vice president of Banca Ifis since April 2019 and since November of the same year he has headed the board of directors of Ifis Npl Servicing spa.
As told by Business Insider, the young Fürstenberg Fassio in March 2019 was placed by his father Sebastien, president of both La Scogliera and Banca Ifis, at the helm of the holding. His first move was to replace Giovanni Bossi, CEO of Banca Ifis for 24 years, with Luciano Colombini, now replaced by Geertman.
Now Fürstenberg Fassio has sent a clear message to Geertman, who seems to have understood it from the first statements. It is necessary "to maintain stable profitability for our shareholders" said the vice president of Banca Ifis who will pay a dividend of 0.47 euros in May. It is hoped, however, that "by the end of the year" the institution will pay "a dividend of 1.1 euro on 2019, dividend already calculated in the capital requirements" required by the Bank of Italy.
THE QUESTION OF BANCA IFIS SECURITIZATIONS
As mentioned, Banca Ifis is very active on the securitization front. In March, Il Sole 24 Ore recalled that Italian banks are pressing on Via XX Settembre to soon reach an agreement with Brussels in order to extend the duration of the State guarantees (GACS) on securitizations of non-performing loans, which are going to maturity on May 27. Extension which, according to the Confindustria newspaper, could come for a year. According to the latest Banca Ifis report, since 2016 there have been 35 Gacs for 85 billion euros gross of securitized NPLs.
In the meantime, it is news these days that Banca Ifis – through the subsidiary Ifis Npl Investing – will carry out the first securitization in Italy of a non-performing portfolio consisting mostly of unsecured loans backed by assignment orders for financing purposes. This is a novelty for this type of impaired loans that will allow Ifis Npl Investing to raise up to 350 million euros of liquidity on the institutional market without deconsolidating the underlying loans that will remain the property of the group. As the same credit institution made known, the loan portfolios involved in the transaction – owned by the subsidiary Ifis Npl Investing – were transferred to a newly established vehicle called Ifis Npl2021-1 Spv Srl which issued senior notes, mezzanine and junior. The mezzanine note and the junior note have been fully subscribed by Ifis Npl Investing and will not be sold while the two classes of senior notes will be admitted to trading on the ExtraMot debt market of Borsa Italiana and will be refinanced on the institutional investor market.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/economia/chi-e-come-strattona-il-vertice-di-banca-ifis/ on Mon, 10 May 2021 05:30:29 +0000.