DIRS.INFO The most relevant business & tech news

☆ Venice's waters turn fluorescent green near Rialto Bridge
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-28 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

[1/2] Venice's waters turn green due to an unknown substance near the Rialto Bridge, in Venice, Italy in this handout image released May 28, 2023. Vigili del Fuoco/Handout via REUTERSMILAN, May 28 (Reuters) - The waters in Venice's main canal turned fluorescent green on Sunday in the area near the Rialto bridge and authorities are seeking to trace the cause, Italy's fire department said. The Venice prefect has called an emergency meeting of police forces to understand what happened and study possible countermeasures, the Ansa news agency reported. The incident echoes recent episodes in Italy where environmental groups have been colouring monuments, including using vegetable charcoal to turn the waters of Rome's Trevi fountain black in a protest against fossil fuels. However, unlike previous cases, no activist group has come forward to claim responsibility for what happened in Venice.

☆ Mediobanca sells bad loan purchase business ahead of new plan
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-22 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

Banca IFIS (IF.MI) agreed to buy Revalea, a unit Mediobanca set up last year by separating purchasing from management of bad debts. It was the second deal announced by Mediobanca in days as it prepares to present a new business plan through 2026 on Wednesday. Revalea, with a staff of 22, holds 6.8 billion euros in unsecured bad loans, which have a net book value (NBV) of 256 million euros. However, by freeing the bank of bad loans, the deal will add around 10 basis points to core capital, it said. The acquisition will allow IFIS to achieve a bad loan purchase target of 30 billion euros in gross terms and 1.8 billion net set out under its 2022-2024 plan.

☆ ION unlocks financing to finalise Italy's Prelios buy-sources
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-22 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

ION has been in talks for months with U.S. investment fund Davidson Kempner to acquire Prelios, a bad loan specialist which DK took private in 2018. While not all of the banks have completed all the necessary internal steps to approve the financing the sources said the finalisation of the deal was imminent. A stalemate over the duration of the financing has been overcome through a 'bridge to bond' structure with a longer maturity than usual, one of the sources said. 'Bridge to bond' financing normally requires the borrower to tap markets within 12-18 months to repay the loan. ION has a single-B credit rating - below the 'BBB' investment grade threshold - by Moody's and S&P Global, according to Refinitiv data.

☆ ECB eyes additional steps to tackle bank deposit risks
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-19 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

The ECB said it was actively working with other global supervisors to understand which lessons could be learnt. "It may be beneficial to explore how factors such as high deposit base concentration and a predominant reliance on uninsured deposits could be dealt with in the Pillar 2 framework," the ECB said. The ECB can impose additional capital and liquidity requirements if it sees fit. It would use liquidity requirements to address liquidity risks. The Pillar 2 liquidity framework focuses on liquidity risks that are not fully addressed by Pillar 1 requirements: the Liquidity Coverage Ratio (LCR) and the Net Stable Funding Ratio (NSFR).

☆ Pent-up demand promises record tourist season for southern Europe
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-19 | by ( Giselda Vagnoni | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +6 min

What's more, there appears to be growing demand for the luxury end of the spectrum. Portugal registered more than 2.8 million of foreign visitors from January to March, the best first quarter on record, according to official data. Airlines such as Lufthansa, easyJet and Ryanair have confirmed robust summer bookings while Ryanair, in anticipation of strong demand, has just ordered 150 new 737 Max-10s and optioned another 150. Italian travel and tourism company Alpitour forecasts turnover 30% higher this year. "We already see a very strong demand to book Christmas holidays in 2023.

☆ Mediobanca buys Arma Partners to boost tech advisory offer
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-18 | by ( Valentina Za | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

The acquisition, which Mediobanca expects to boost its fee income by 10%, comes ahead of a new three-year strategy CEO Alberto Nagel will unveil on May 24. In the same year, it advised Germany's Aareal Bank (ARLG.DE) on the sale of a stake in its $1.1 billion software unit Aareon to Advent International. The deal will boost earnings per share, based on last year's figures, Mediobanca said, without elaborating. With 86 staff and some $100 million in yearly revenue, Arma was founded in 2003 by Paul-Noël Guély, a former head of software and services investment banking at Goldman Sachs. Arma has offices also in Munich, a U.S. presence and a network of affiliated advisory firms in Japan, Australia, Israel, Turkey and Brazil.

☆ Italy's Intesa embraces AI to tame bank supervision "information overload"
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-16 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

MILAN, May 16 (Reuters) - Intesa Sanpaolo (ISP.MI) has introduced an artificial intelligence tool it has designed to wade through thousands of publications on banking supervision, Italy's biggest bank said on Tuesday. The machine learning tool, dubbed Lisa or Linguistic Intelligence for Supervisory Awareness, uses language processing algorithms to scan documents for correlations and patterns of meaning to help predict future trends. Intesa has a dedicated team of people who worked with Lisa, validating its results but also expanding its awareness of banking regulatory issues. "Banking supervision is an area where it is fair to speak of information overload, with truly massive and exponential content production," said Walter Chiaradonna, head of Intesa's supervisory strategic steering department. Chiaradonna listed "practices, interviews, statements, texts and in-depth studies that in turn generate a proliferation of information that is unmanageable without adequate support."

☆ Powerful storm snaps communications network in Myanmar's Rakhine
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-15 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

[1/3] Strong winds and heavy rainfall is seen at ThekayPyin Rohingya camp, as Cyclone Mocha approaches, in Sittwe, Rakhine, Myanmar, May 14, 2023 in this screengrab taken from a handout video. Some 400,000 people were evacuated in Myanmar and Bangladesh ahead of Cyclone Mocha making landfall, as authorities and aid agencies scrambled to avoid heavy casualties. "All communication is still down and people are in trouble because all the roofs are gone," said Khine Thu Kha, a spokesman for the Arakan Army, which control swathes of Rakhine state. Benjamin Small, a consultant with the United Nations Development Programme, said it was hard to understand the scale of destruction because of ruptured communications in Rakhine. "The storm itself is a trigger for more problems as heavy rains continue and landslides and flooding tend to follow."

"Our commitment to Juventus is unchanged and no meetings have taken place," a spokesperson for Exor said when asked to comment by Reuters on Friday. Juventus also faces potential new penalties, including further points deductions, in a separate case over alleged irregularities in payments to players. The Agnelli family has owned the club, which it listed in 2001, almost uninterrupted since 1923. New potential co-investors could include Middle Eastern or Asian sovereign wealth funds, or U.S. funds or family offices, two sources said. Juventus ranked 11th in Deloitte's European Money League published in January, based on its annual revenue of 400 million euros in 2021/22.

☆ Italy's Digital Value sees sales above 1 bln euros by 2025-adviser
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-10 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

MILAN, May 10 (Reuters) - Italian digital services provider Digital Value (DGV.MI) expects to drive sales above 1 billion euros ($1.1 billion) by 2025 thanks to rising tech investments by businesses and the public administration, a strategic adviser to the firm said. "It is a target we can achieve," Marco Patuano, a veteran Italian executive who sits on Digital Value's board, told reporters. Such a move could help Digital Value, which specialises in providing digital infrastructure services to big corporate and public administration clients, to play an active role in the sector's consolidation, Patuano said. He said he had received a waiver to keep his board seat at Digital Value and his role as strategic adviser to the company. ($1 = 0.9084 euros)Reporting by Elvira Pollina; editing by Valentina ZaOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ Autonomous agents are Silicon Valley's latest AI obsession. Here's why pizza-ordering bots may be coming to a computer near you soon.
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-10 | by ( Stephanie Palazzolo | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +7 min

"Autonomous AI agents" are AI bots that can plan and prioritize to achieve user-provided goals. However, the rise of AI agents has sparked concerns around safety and the potential for AGI. From assistants to digital friendsHowever, AI doomsdayers don't have to be too worried yet — the performance of these AI agents have often been less than stellar. Without the proper guardrails, AI agents with unrestricted access to the Internet may similarly take unanticipated steps to complete its goals, like transferring money from a bank account. And sometimes, the misuse of AI agents is intentional, rather than accidental.

☆ New York’s Most Inventive Pizzas Are Cooked Up at Pop-Ups
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-09 | by ( Pete Wells | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

For this we can thank the State Legislature, which passed a law last year allowing licensed vendors, including pop-ups, to sell food at breweries. Beer makers had been urging the change for years, said Ann Reilly, the executive director of the New York City Brewers Guild. In most of the state, the vendors are often food trucks stationed just outside the building. Follow New York Times Cooking on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, TikTok and Pinterest. Get regular updates from New York Times Cooking, with recipe suggestions, cooking tips and shopping advice.

☆ Italian bank Intesa raises profit target after beating forecasts
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-05 | by ( Valentina Za | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

The lender forecast 7 billion euros ($7.7 billion) in net profit this year, having said in February that it would top last year's result of 5.5 billion euros. The upgrade comes after fellow heavyweight UniCredit (CRDI.MI) raised its 2023 profit target this week by more than a fifth. Intesa reported first-quarter net income of 1.96 billion euros, far above a 1.54 billion euro consensus in analyst forecasts compiled by Reuters. Total revenue topped expectations at 6.06 billion euros, up 7% from the previous quarter. However, it said the boost from higher rates would continue to drive profit higher and forecast more than 13 billion euros in net interest income this year.

ROME, May 5 (Reuters) - Italy's Treasury is open to reducing its 64% stake in Monte dei Paschi di Siena (MPS) (BMPS.MI) through one or more share sales on the market, three people briefed on the matters told Reuters. After rescuing MPS at a cost of 5.4 billion euros ($6 billion) for taxpayers, Rome pumped another 1.6 billion into the Tuscan bank last November when it covered 64% of a 2.5 billion euro capital raise. MPS had to raise fresh capital to fund staff exits and replenish its capital reserves after the Treasury failed to clinch a sale of the bank to UniCredit (CRDI.MI) in 2021. Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said several times that MPS's privatisation should foster the creation of several large banking groups in the country. ($1 = 0.9081 euros)Reporting by Giuseppe Fonte in Rome and Valentina Za in Milan; Editing by Susan FentonOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ Adviser to Italy's Treasury tables proposal for windfall tax on banks
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-04 | by ( Giuseppe Fonte | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

European lenders have consistently beaten expectations in recent quarters as higher rates set by the European Central Bank (ECB) to curb inflation have driven profits higher, while leaving savers disgruntled. Government sources said last week that Economy Minister Giancarlo Giorgetti was working on a windfall tax on banks to fund relief measures for families hit by inflation, which is running above the euro zone average. Giorgetti told parliament that the government "cannot and will not" ignore the fact that banks have seen revenues increase due to higher interest rates, but have not adjusted rates on deposits accordingly. UniCredit (CRDI.MI) CEO Andrea Orcel confirmed on Wednesday that there were discussions ongoing in Italy about a new tax on banks' profits, but there was no certainty it would be introduced. Madrid is planning to raise around 6 billion euros ($6.63 billion) from a windfall tax on energy companies and banks.

☆ UniCredit to use 300 mln euro charges for staff exits-sources
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-04 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

In reporting stronger-than-expected quarterly results, UniCredit on Wednesday raised its 2023 profit goal above 6.5 billion euros ($7.2 billion) and said the figure included 300 million euros in restructuring charges it would book mostly in the second quarter. UniCredit last year invited applications from staff who wanted to retire early and were within five years of qualifying for a pension. On Dec. 1 it signed an accord with unions and booked 239 million euros in charges to fund voluntary exits to be replaced by younger hires. Eager to protect its branch network, UniCredit allocated 80% of the 2022 early retirement packages to people from its central offices, raising complaints from unions, the source added. UniCredit underwent years of restructuring under CEO Jean Pierre Mustier, but cost cuts remain a key plank of new CEO Andrea Orcel's strategy.

Lenders wasted little time in charging more for loans when interest rates rapidly rose from an almost 15-year slumber around zero last year, but most have dragged their feet on boosting deposit rates paid to millions of their customers. Money market funds are proving popular among savers seeking bigger returns on their cash as high levels of inflation persist. Data from Refinitiv Lipper showed more than 34 billion euros ($37.6 billion) of net flows into European money market funds in March, the best-selling asset type that month. Fidelity International also reported an 8% year-on-year uplift in flows into money market funds on its investment platform between Jan. 1 and April 26. Some lawmakers have criticised banks for the mismatch between what they charge borrowers and the interest rates offered to savers.

☆ Italy's Poste CEO says firms to use balance sheet in Eurovita rescue
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-04 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

MILAN, May 4 (Reuters) - Italian banks and insurers that are being called upon to rescue struggling life group Eurovita will help by using their balance sheet, Poste Italiane's CEO said on Thursday, without elaborating. The Poste Italiane chief executive said all the main Italian insurers and banks distributing products by Cinven-owned Eurovita were working on a possible solution. "Everybody would use their balance sheet instead of funding a recapitalisation," he said, adding he could not explain more. Italian authorities have taken over management of Eurovita and are working on brokering a rescue after strong-arming Cinven into pumping 100 million euros of capital into the insurer. For insurers that rely on banks and financial advisers for their distribution, redemptions totalled 119% of premiums.

☆ South Africa’s most epic hikes
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-03 | by ( Joe Yogerst | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +11 min

Here are nine of South Africa’s best multiday backpacking trails:Otter TrailThe coastal Otter Trail takes in some of South Africa's most beautiful coastline. South African TourismSouth Africa’s oldest (established in 1968) and most celebrated hiking route, the Otter Trail runs along the Eastern Cape coast between Storms River Mouth and Nature’s Valley in Garden Route National Park. South African TourismSummit the legendary Drakensberg escarpment on a vertiginous route that rises high above Thendele Royal Natal National Park in KwaZulu-Natal province. Distance: About 25 kilometers (16 miles)Time: 2 daysInfo: hikingsouthafrica.co.za/kgaswane-summit-trail/Tsitsikamma TrailThe Garden Route National Park is an advenure sport paradise. Each traverse takes seven to 10 days during the South African spring (September-November).

☆ UniCredit raises 2023 goals after stronger-than-expected quarter
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-03 | by ( Valentina Za | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

UniCredit forecast a 2023 profit above 6.5 billion euros ($7.2 billion), up from January guidance that broadly matched its 2022 result of 5.2 billion euros. Net profit in the first three months came in at 2.06 billion euros, well above an average analyst forecast of 1.3 billion euros in a bank-provided consensus, boosted by an 18% yearly jump in revenues. Net interest income in the quarter topped expectations rising 43.6% year-on-year to 3.3 billion euros. Net fees also unexpectedly strengthened 10.7% from the previous quarter, surpassing forecasts at 2.0 billion euros. "There are a number of opportunities we see across Europe [but] financially we still represent the best value proposition for our investors," he said.

☆ Generali's No.3 investor Caltagirone withholds backing for 2022 accounts
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-28 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

MILAN, April 28 (Reuters) - Italian tycoon Francesco Gaetano Caltagirone, the third-largest investor in Generali (GASI.MI), on Friday withheld his approval for the insurer's 2022 accounts, two sources said, after attempting to bring about a management shake-up last year. They proposed an alternative candidate for the job but lost out in the April 2022 shareholder vote. During the AGM, Donnet said those results put Generali "in an excellent position" to achieve all the targets of its plan to 2024. In April last year, at the height of the shareholder clash, the 2021 accounts got around 85% of AGM votes. Italy's Benetton family, with a 4.8% stake, also challenged Donnet who had the support of Generali's top shareholder Mediobanca (MDBI.MI), which holds 13% of the insurer.

☆ UniCredit to repay AT1 bond, says no need to issue more near term
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-27 | by ( Valentina Za | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

Investors' confidence in AT1 bonds has been rocked by a Swiss authorities' decision to wipe out $17 billion of Credit Suisse's CSGN.S AT1 debt under its takeover by UBS (UBSG.S), in a move that hit AT1 holders harder than shareholders. To do so, banks need approval from supervisors because such bonds, which are designed to help lenders withstand possible losses, count towards their capital buffers and banks would normally need to refinance them. A supervisory source told Reuters at the time that banks with strong capital ratios such as UniCredit did well to call AT1 bonds and prop up investor confidence. AT1 bonds were introduced in the wake of the global financial crisis to provide lenders with tools that could allow them to pass on losses to investors, shielding taxpayers. "UniCredit has limited need for TLAC/MREL fundingfor the remainder of this year and no need to issue AT1 instruments in the foreseeable future.

MILAN, April 26 (Reuters) - Italian unlisted cooperative banking group ICCREA is awaiting by the end of May offers for its insurance business which it values at up to 950 million euros ($1.05 billion) in total, sources with knowledge of the matter said on Wednesday. ICCREA bought out its partner Cattolica, an Italian insurer now owned by bigger peer Generali (GASI.MI), after their accord expired at the end of last year and was not renewed, the three sources said. Cattolica and ICCREA had agreed in 2019 to extend until the end of 2022 their partnership under a deal that saw Cattolica raise to 70% its ownership of their insurance joint-ventures BCC Vita and BCC Assicurazioni. Now in possession of 100% of its insurance business, ICCREA is working with adviser KPMG to select new partners for both its life- and non-life divisions, the sources said. ICCREA Director General Mauro Pastore said in February the bank expected to select one or more partners for its insurance business by the end of the year.

☆ Italy's FSI invests up to $110 million in debit card operator BANCOMAT
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-26 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

MILAN, April 26 (Reuters) - Italian investment fund FSI has agreed to invest up to 100 million euros ($110 million) in debit card operator BANCOMAT to support its expansion in Europe. Under a new business plan drawn up by the company, its main shareholders and FSI, BANCOMAT will complete targeted acquisitions and build a new platform to offer clients a wider range of services and products. In early 2022, it invested in the payments business of cooperative banking group BCC ICCREA, acquiring a 60% stake in electronic payment company BCC Pay. The payments sector has been swept up in a wave of mergers and acquisitions as it seeks the financial muscle to keep up with technological advances while contending with the threat from new entrants. The accord comes after FSI last year signed a preliminary deal for an investment in BANCOMAT.

Search resuls for: "Za"

25 mentions found