Italian bank UBI's offices searched, executives under investigation-sources
Reuters
May 14, 2014, 8:57 pm
A logo of UBI bank (Unione di Banche Italiane) is seen in downtown Rome July 23, 2010. REUTERS/Alessandro Bianchi
By Antonella Cinelli
ROME (Reuters) - Italian magistrates are investigating three executives at Unione di Banche Italiane (UBI), Italy's fifth-biggest lender, as part of a probe into alleged obstruction of regulators, four sources with knowledge of the situation said.
Earlier on Wednesday tax police searched the offices of several managers at the bank's headquarters in the northern city of Bergamo, two sources said.
The sources said UBI's Chief Executive Victor Massiah as well as the chairmen of the bank's supervisory and management boards were placed under investigation. UBI declined to comment.
The bank's shares were down 3.8 percent to 6.1350 euros by 1034 BST, with traders saying reports of the probe had caused the slide in price.
Veteran Italian banker Giovanni Bazoli, chairman of the supervisory board of Intesa Sanpaolo, was also being investigated because of his role as chairman of the steering committee of an association of UBI shareholders, one of the sources said.
Intesa Sanpaolo and a spokesman for Bazoli declined to comment.
Also under investigation is Giampiero Pesenti, chairman of Italian cement maker Italcementi, the sources said. A company spokesman declined to comment.
Two of the sources said the probe was linked to UBI's leasing unit, whose former managers and board members were fined 360,000 euros last year by the Bank of Italy, which oversees the banking sector.
A document about the fines which appears on the central bank's website dated October 2013 alleged that there were "failures in the organisation, in the internal checks and in the management of credit" at UBI Leasing.
UBI RESULTS
News of the probe overshadowed UBI's first-quarter results, which were released before the market opened on Wednesday and initially sent the share price 1 percent higher.
"The results were good, it's the news of the searches that's hurting the stock," one Milan-based trader said.
The bank said its net profit for the three months more than doubled thanks to rising operating revenues and its stock of bad debt, a sore point for lenders in the euro zone's third biggest economy, edged down slightly.
UBI, one of 15 Italian banks set to undergo a health check by European regulators, said it would hold a conference call with analysts on the results at 1400 BST.
Its net profit more than doubled to 58.1 million euros (47.4 million pounds), up from 26.5 million euros in the same period last year and ahead of the consensus of analysts' forecasts of 53 million euros according to a survey distributed by the bank.
Writedowns on impaired loans were up 26 percent at 198.6 million euros from a year ago but the backlog of bad debts edged down by 15 million euros compared with end-2013, to a total of 12.65 billion euros.
UBI's core capital stood at around 10.5 percent of assets at the end of March, above the minimum requirement of 8 percent sought by the new euro zone banking regulator, the European Central Bank.
(Additional reporting by Andrea Mandala, Paola Arosio, Stephen Jewkes, Stefano Rebaudo and Valentina Za; Writing by Silvia Aloisi; Editing by Greg Mahlich)
