Profumo’s exit is not just a matter of money. The CEO of a bank stays in the saddle for 2 reasons, either he is functional in the system like Passera of IntesaSanPaolo (remember Alitalia?), and in some cases it’s he himself who is the System as in the case of Geronzi, or he produces profits, distributes dividends, and makes the shareholders rich. Profumo belongs to this latter category of bankers.
For some time now Unicredit has not been a source of income for its shareholders. Last year the dividends were distributed in the form of shares. The shares however have constantly lost value. A share in 2009 was worth 2.64 euro down from the pre-crisis value of 6.50 and yesterday a share was at just 1.94 euro. Today it’ll be worse, there‘ll be a stream of selling. The 2009 profit was down to 1.7 billion, a result that is more than acceptable in the current situation, but well below the more than 6 billion in 2007. In the last two years, the shareholders have financed the bank with capital increases of the order of billions of euro, but they have received nothing in return. Their money has evidently not been sufficient if it has been necessary to take on board “cavaliere bruno Gaddafi”. Unless there are surprises it is he who is now the key shareholder of the top Italian credit institution with 7.5%.
Profumo has always paid for his partial independence by giving the shareholders their “pound of flesh”, but Unicredit is not his bank, he’s not the owner, he’s an employee, the top one and the most important but in fact he’s an employee. Behind his ousting after 15 years, unless there are last-minute rethinks by the System, there are all those who have been kept out by Profumo, starting with Boss(ol)i’s Lega, the one connected with the collapse of Credieuronord, that wants the banks, as well as the Foundations commanded by the parties and by their minions, and also Geronzi, the 70-plus president of Generali, who as well as Arpe’s scalp now adds that of Profumo, then there’s the lobbies connected to the Bank of Rome and the Bank of Sicily merged into Unicredit. The list of Profumo’s enemies is as long as the Boot of Italy, until now, his shield has been made up of the results and the protection of Allianz, the German shareholder that supported his candidacy 15 years ago.
Profumo is a banker, not a saint, but he was one of the few held in high regard in Europe, and like Matteo Arpe he was ousted by the System when the time came. Behind them there’s nothing, the parties. From today the banks are even more “Cosa Loro” {their thing – like Cosa Nostra}.