Italian bank shares rebounded on Wednesday after the government watered down a surprise windfall tax on excess profits announced earlier this week.
City analysts estimated that the Monday announcement of a 40% tax on excess income derived from higher interest rates in 2023 would deal a 19% blow to Italian lenders' net profits for the year.
Shares of BPER Banca, Banco BPM, Intesa Sanpaolo, Finecobank and UniCredit all fell sharply during Tuesday trading wiping out more than 9 billion euros from the market capitalization of the Italian banking sector.
Finecobank shares recovered 6% by mid-morning on Wednesday, while Unicredit and BPER Banca were both up by more than 4%.
"Initially, right after the announcement of the windfall tax on Monday evening, the government reiterated that they were expecting to raise around 3 billion euros in tax, but then the market realized that the numbers didn't add up," Rania explained.
Persons:
Gianmarco Rania, Rania
Organizations:
Banca, Banco, Citi, BPER Banca, Banor, CNBC