Italy's Banca Monte dei Paschi (MPS) beat first-quarter net profit forecasts on Tuesday, helped by higher revenue, and said it would update its medium-term targets next quarter as its recovery is running ahead of plan. The bank, which had to be bailed out by the Italian state in 2017 and secured a make-or-break capital increase in November 2022, will pay a dividend of 0.25 euro per share this month, its first since 2011 and two years earlier than anticipated. "We started (2024) with a very good pace," CEO Luigi Lovaglio said in a call conference after the results.
MILAN (Reuters) -An Italian appeals court on Monday acquitted three former top executives of Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena in one strand of a long-running derivatives case, boosting the earnings prospects of the state-owned lender. The court ruling, which overturns an earlier conviction, reduces the legal risks facing bailed-out Monte dei Paschi (MPS), in which the state still has a 39% holding after selling a 25% stake last month for 920 million euros ($989 million). The Italian state must eventually exit MPS's capital in full in order to comply with European Union rules on state aid.
The placement of a 25% stake in Monte dei Paschi di Siena (MPS) by Italy's Treasury earlier this week could serve as a template for Rome's strategy to cut its stake in other state-controlled companies, the economy minister said on Thursday. Asked if a stake sale or a merger was the way to further cut the state holding in MPS, Minister Giancarlo Giorgetti said the bank could help the government with its broader strategy which is to boost competition in the banking sector by creating a third major player. Italy attracted strong interest from funds when it sold 25% of MPS via an accelerated book-building (ABB) for 920 million euros ($1 billion) on Monday, advancing plans to re-privatise the world's oldest bank two years after a failed first attempt.