On January 2, the European Central Bank (ECB) appointed three temporary administrators and a three-member surveillance committee to take charge of Banca Carige, the troubled Genoese lender, following the resignations of a majority of the members of its board of directors, including chairman Pietro Modiano and chief executive Fabio Innocenzi.
The ECB describes the move as “an early intervention measure”. It comes amid the continuing fallout from a shareholders meeting on December 22 which failed to approve a €400 million capital raising that the ECB had required to stabilize the bank before the end of 2018.
Investors have been following the Italian bank’s struggles with alarm, since it was shut out of the subordinated debt markets last year as it strove to meet regulatory capital requirements.
Investors were relieved in November 2018 when the management board of the voluntary intervention scheme of the Italian interbank deposit protection fund (FITD) proposed that member banks underwrite €320 million of subordinated tier-2 bonds to restore Banca Carige’s capital ratios. It was a bailout, of course, but not a state bailout.
“It’s a good outcome for the Italian banking system,” Gildas Surry, portfolio manager at Axiom Alternative Investments – which runs $1.4
