By Valentina Za and Giuseppe Fonte
MILAN (Reuters) – The board of state-owned Italian bank Monte dei Paschi (MPS) will meet on Monday to discuss the future of Chief Executive Guido Bastianini, after sources said his position was at risk.
Sources close to the matter told Reuters on Sunday that Italy’s Treasury, which owns 64% of MPS after a 2017 bailout, wanted to replace Bastianini after last year’s failed sale of the Tuscan bank to stronger peer UniCredit.
Directors plan to strip Bastianini of CEO powers when the board of MPS meets on Monday to approve full-year results, unless he decides to step down before then, two people with knowledge of the matter said.
Sources had previously said the Treasury saw Alessandro Vandelli, former CEO of mid-sized bank BPER, as the best candidate to replace him.
In a short statement late on Wednesday, MPS said the board on Feb. 7 would examine a corporate governance issue relating to Bastianini. He took the role in 2020, after predecessor Marco Morelli refused to serve another mandate.
The appointment of Bastianini, formerly at regional lender Carige, was sponsored by the 5-Star Movement coalition party, which has always advocated postponing the re-privatisation of MPS.
The sources said the Treasury blamed Bastianini for running MPS with a view to keeping it on a standalone basis, and wanted someone who would focus squarely on meeting restructuring goals set by the EU and preparing it for a sale.
The collapse in talks with UniCredit has forced Italy to seek an extension of re-privatisation deadline Rome had agreed with European Union authorities for the end of last year.
Negotiations with the EU are ongoing while MPS also needs to raise 2.5 billion euros in capital from investors in the coming months after emerging as the most vulnerable euro zone lender in industry stress tests last summer.
If Bastianini does go, MPS is expected to call a shareholder meeting shortly to name a new board, one of the sources said, adding Chief Financial Officer Giuseppe Sica could temporarily take on the executive powers until then.
(Reporting by Valentina Za in Milan and Giuseppe Fonte in Rome; Editing by Cynthia Osterman and Keith Weir)
