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NEW YORK, Dec 7 (Reuters) - Sonnedix and Cubico, two renewable energy developers, are competing to buy Chilean solar power assets that Italy's Enel (ENEI.MI) has put on the block to help trim debt, sources familiar with the matter told Reuters. Consisting of around 500 megawatts (MW) of operating and newly built sites, the portfolio is expected to fetch up to 1 billion euros ($1 billion). Enel and Cubico declined to comment. Pension and infrastructure funds have been buying stakes in low-carbon energy generation for many years, attracted by their predictable returns. Additional reporting by Valentina Za and Francesca Landini in Milan; editing by Cynthia OstermanOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ Israel's NewMed signs deal in Morocco for natgas exploration
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-06 | by ( Valentina Za | ) www.reuters.com time to read: 1 min

JERUSALEM, Dec 6 (Reuters) - Israel's NewMed Energy (NWMDp.TA) said on Tuesday it signed a deal with Morocco's energy and mining ministry and Adarco Energy to explore for and produce natural gas in the Moroccan offshore license Boujdour Atlantique. NewMed and Adarco will each have a 37.5% stake in the license partnership, NewMed said. The Moroccan ministry will hold the remaining 25%. Reporting by Ari RabinovitchOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ UniCredit to assess CEO pay rise ahead of general meeting
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-03 | by ( Valentina Za | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

"The board examined Orcel's pay package in light of the important performance reached in 2021 under his leadership," the report said. "Orcel separately indicated ... he prefers to keep his fixed pay unchanged and have his variable pay closely linked to performance goals," it added. "The board agrees ... and will reassess Orcel's pay ahead of the 2023 general shareholder meeting in light of results and progress made in 2021 and 2022," it concluded. Annual pay of up to 7.5 million euros makes Orcel one of Europe's best paid bank executives, analysts say. The Financial Times first reported UniCredit sought a pay hike for Orcel citing people familiar with the matter.

☆ UniCredit to reassess CEO pay ahead of general meeting
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-03 | by ( Valentina Za | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

MILAN, Dec 3 (Reuters) - UniCredit (CRDI.MI) will reassess the remuneration of CEO Andrea Orcel ahead of its 2023 general meeting to see if the results achieved by Italy's second-biggest bank in 2021-2022 warrant an increase, a document on its website showed. "The board examined Orcel's pay package in light of the important performance reached in 2021 under his leadership," the report said. "Orcel separately indicated ... he prefers to keep his fixed pay unchanged and have his variable pay closely linked to performance goals," it added. "The board agrees ... and will reassess Orcel's pay ahead of the 2023 general shareholder meeting in light of results and progress made in 2021 and 2022," it concluded. The Financial Times first reported UniCredit sought a pay hike for Orcel citing people familiar with the matter.

☆ Italy seeks U.S. help to unlock funding for Lukoil refinery, sources say
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-30 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

The survival of the ISAB plant in Sicily is under threat due to a European embargo on seaborne Russian oil coming into effect on Dec. 5. ISAB has been forced to rely solely on Russian oil after creditor banks halted financing and stopped providing guarantees needed to buy oil from alternative suppliers. Its creditor banks have been wary of dealing with a Russian entity because Lukoil is affected by international sanctions in the United States, but not in Europe. So far, however, there has been no positive response to Italy's request, one of the sources said. A cabinet meeting on Thursday will also discuss steps aimed at helping the ISAB plant, one of the sources said.

☆ Former Luxottica CEO Guerra to join Prada - source
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-29 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: 1 min

MILAN, Nov 29 (Reuters) - Former Luxottica Chief Executive Andrea Guerra is set to join Prada to help ease a transition at the helm of the Italian luxury goods group between current boss Patrizio Bertelli and 34-year-old son Lorenzo, a source with knowledge of the matter told Reuters. Both Prada and Guerra declined to comment on the issue. Reporting by Valentina Za; editing by Agnieszka FlakOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ Gas crisis forces Italy's Ansaldo to raise $569 million in capital
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-29 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

MILAN, Nov 29 (Reuters) - Italy's Ansaldo Energia, a state-controlled supplier of power generation equipment, on Tuesday said it would raise cash and push back debt maturities after warning in August that the Ukraine crisis had hit demand for gas power generation. Ansaldo Energia is 60% owned by Italian state investor CDP Equity with the remaining 40% in the hands of China's Shanghai Electric Group (601727.SS). The capital strengthening will amount in total to 550 million euros ($569 million). As part of it, CDP Equity will convert into equity a 200 million euro loan it had extended to Ansaldo as well as 50 million euros in overdue interest payments. Like rivals, the company also had to contend with higher costs for materials used in production, energy and gas prices.

But key officials in Giorgia Meloni's right-wing government have expressed strong reservations about CDP's plans for TIM, making a non-binding bid from the state lender for the network unlikely, three sources told Reuters. Top government officials are expected to meet later on Monday to discuss plans for TIM, among other issues. Marking a break with the past, Meloni on Friday entrusted the government's broadband strategy to Cabinet Undersecretary Alessio Butti, who has openly criticised CDP's plans for TIM. Economy Minister Giancarlo Giorgetti last week reiterated that the government wants to win control of TIM's network which is deemed of strategic interest, adding such a goal can be reached in "several ways". Giorgetti also warned that Butti's plans for TIM needs to be extensively discussed within the government.

☆ Juventus Chairman Agnelli resigns with entire board
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-28 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

MILAN, Nov 28 (Reuters) - The board of Juventus (JUVE.MI), chaired by Andrea Agnelli, has resigned "in the best interest of the company," the Italian Serie A soccer team said on Monday. The collective resignation comes after Juventus' financial statements received scrutiny from prosecutors and Italian market regulator Consob in recent months for alleged false accounting and market manipulation. Juventus said it had called a shareholder meeting on Jan. 18 to appoint a new board. Andrea Agnelli, who has chaired Juventus since 2010, will not seek a reappointment, a source with knowledge of the matter told Reuters. In a letter to Juventus staff seen by Reuters, Andrea Agnelli described the company situation as "delicate."

☆ ECB's Schnabel pushes back on smaller rate hikes
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-24 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

However Schnabel, the most influential voice in the hawkish camp, said this was premature and could even prove counter-productive. "Incoming data so far suggest that the room for slowing down the pace of interest rate adjustments remains limited, even as we are approaching estimates of the 'neutral' rate," she told an event in London. "The extraordinarily large degree of uncertainty surrounding such estimates implies that they cannot serve as a yardstick to inform the appropriate pace of interest rate adjustments. Dutch governor Knot expressed doubts over market expectations for the ECB's deposit rate, currently at 1.5%, to peak at 3%. In all honesty, I'm not sure about that," Knot told a hearing at the Dutch parliament.

☆ ION discussing earn-out price clause with DK in Prelios deal-sources
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-23 | by ( Valentina Za | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

The two sources close to the matter said ION and DK were discussing a so-called earn out clause, which would see ION pay part of the price at closing and the rest once the business hits certain financial targets. ION and DK declined to comment. Sources had told Reuters earlier this month ION was in discussions with DK over a potential acquisition of Prelios, on which the New York-based fund has put a 1.4 billion euro ($1.44 billion) price tag. Shortly before that, ION had snatched for 1.5 billion euros Italian banking software firm Cedacri. U.S. fund DK first invested in Prelios in 2017, buying other investors to take it private.

☆ Italy's Intesa agrees further 500 euro one-off payment to staff
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-22 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

MILAN, Nov 22 (Reuters) - Italy's biggest bank Intesa Sanpaolo (ISP.MI) has agreed with unions a further 500-euro ($513.45) one-off payment to help staff cope with soaring inflation, the sector's largest union FABI said on Tuesday. Intesa had announced with first half earnings a previous 500 euro one-time payment for its employees. The contributions concern 70,000 workers in Italy excluding executives, Intesa said, adding that the two payments would cost the bank around 87 million euros. Intesa is currently engaged in broad ranging discussions with unions over remote-working arrangements and the introduction of a four-day working week, to help the bank save on energy costs. ($1 = 0.9738 euro)Reporting by Valentina Za; editing by Agnieszka Flak, Alvise Armellini and Jonathan OatisOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ Italy’s bank lobby warns ECB of risk of attending board meetings
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-21 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

[1/2] Head of Italian Banking Association (ABI) Antonio Patuelli is seen during a meeting in Rome, Italy, October 31, 2017. REUTERS/Remo CasilliFLORENCE, Italy, Nov 21 (Reuters) - The head of Italy's banking lobby urged the European Central Bank (ECB) to consider whether its representatives could find themselves sharing responsibility for lenders’ mistakes if they attend banks’ board meetings. Speaking at a banking seminar, Italian Banking Association President Antonio Patuelli weighed in on the tensions brewing between euro zone banks and ECB supervisors. Patuelli said it should not come at a surprise if Italian banks bought fewer domestic government bonds following the ECB's decision. Touching on the issue of ECB representatives' presence at banks' board meetings, Patuelli said this could get them in trouble if they proved unable to stop what later emerged as misdeeds.

☆ UniCredit to give staff in Germany 2,500 euro tax-free bonus-memo
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-18 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

MILAN, Nov 18 (Reuters) - Italy's second-largest lender UniCredit (CRDI.MI) will give its staff in Germany a bonus of 2,500 euros ($2,594) to compensate for rising inflation, a copy of an internal memo seen by Reuters and confirmed by a spokesperson showed. Trainees will receive a bonus of up to 1,250 euros, depending on the time they worked for the bank, the memo showed. The bonuses are exempt from tax as well as social security charges and will be paid out in December, it added. Under a third package of inflation relief measures costing in aggregate more than 65 billion euros, Germany announced in September that employers can pay out tax-free bonuses to staff of up to 3,000 euros each until the end of 2024. UniCredit had roughly 14,000 employees in Germany as of end-September, its website showed, making it its second biggest market after Italy where it employs nearly 35,000 people.

☆ Intesa Sanpaolo repays around 13 bln euros in TLTRO III funds
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-18 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: 1 min

MILAN, Nov 18 (Reuters) - Italy's largest bank Intesa Sanpaolo (ISP.MI) said on Friday it had repaid around 13 billion euros ($13.48 billion) in ECB's Targeted Longer Term Refinancing Operation (TLTRO) III funds. The European Central Bank has given banks an incentive to get rid of those loans by taking away a rate subsidy last month. It was its first move to mop up cash from the banking system and the first step towards unwinding its massive bond purchases. The early repayment leaves Intesa with 102 billion euros in outstanding TLTRO funds, the bank said in a statement published on its website. ($1 = 0.9646 euros)Reporting by Valentina Za; Writing by Gianluca Semeraro, Editing by Agnieszka FlakOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ Monte dei Paschi posts 388 mln euros loss hit by layoff costs
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-11 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

MILAN, Nov 11 (Reuters) - State-owned Italian bank Monte dei Paschi di Siena (MPS) (BMPS.MI) on Friday reported a 388 million loss for the third quarter after booking charges to lay off staff through a costly voluntary scheme. MPS said the capital raising had lifted its core capital ratio to 14.7% at the end of September, up from 10.8% three months earlier. MPS booked 925 million euros in charges in the period to finance 4,000 staff cuts. Excluding the layoff charges the bank's net profit in the nine months stood at 565 million euros thanks to a 415 million euro tax boost. ($1 = 0.9786 euros)Reporting by Valentina Za, editing by Alvise Armellini & Shri NavaratnamOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ Telecom Italia profit falls, net debt rises
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-09 | by ( Elvira Pollina | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

Italy's biggest phone company on Wednesday said earnings after interest, tax, depreciation, amortisation and lease (EBITDA-AL) were 1.31 billion euros in July-September. That is in line with an analyst consensus provided by the company and down from 1.48 billion euros a year ago. Revenue in Italy, where the former phone monopoly makes the bulk of its turnover, fell by 5.3% to 2.92 billion euros, also matching expectations. As a consequence, it wrote off deferred tax assets for a net 1.96 billion euros. Adjusted net debt was up 15% year-on-year to 25.5 billion euros at the end of September.

The European Central Bank (ECB), which supervises euro zone banks, believes some lenders have overly optimistic assumptions about the economy, based on models that cannot fully capture the damage from the current bout of inflation, the sources say. Source: S&P Global-EBAMorgan Stanley estimates euro zone banks will pay out 40 billion euros ($40 billion) in 2022 dividends plus an additional 60 billion euros in share buybacks between this year and next - an outsized return by recent standards. "It's not a good idea to pay out capital during a recession," Intesa's Chief Executive Carlo Messina told analysts last week. "With the economy entering recession, the time of massive bank payouts is over," Marco Troiano, a managing director at Scope Ratings, said. "Running down capital cushions would weaken banks."

REUTERS/Antonio ParrinelloROME, Nov 8 (Reuters) - Italy's efforts to secure financing to keep an Italian oil refinery owned by Lukoil up and running despite new sanctions on Russia kicking in next month have hit obstacles, three people close to the matter said. Lukoil is not under sanctions, but ISAB suppliers and lenders had been wary of dealings with a Russian entity following the Ukraine conflict. A sale to non-Russian buyers would avert the closure of the ISAB plant, which directly employs some 1,000 workers. Lukoil could provide temporary funding for ISAB, based on the minutes of a ministerial meeting held on Oct. 17 to discuss ISAB financing. Rome is also considering buying a minority stake in the refinery to protect Italian interests, one of the sources said.

☆ Shares in UniCredit hit by report of friction with ECB
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-07 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

MILAN, Nov 7 (Reuters) - Shares in UniCredit (CRDI.MI) fell on Monday after a report of tensions between Italy's only bank that regulators deem of global systemic relevance and European Central Bank supervisors. Shares in UniCredit fell 3.3% by 0835 GMT against a flattish sector (.FTITLMS3010), with a Milan-based trader saying the report by the Financial Times had triggered profit taking on the stock. Citing people familiar with the matter, the FT said UniCredit had clashed with the ECB over the bank's capital distribution plans and its failure to leave Russia. A spokesperson for UniCredit referred to comments the bank had made to the FT saying the ECB had provided ongoing "challenge and guidance" during the strategic overhaul by Chief Executive Andrea Orcel and that the regulator's "public support" was indicative of its trust in the bank. Reporting by Giancarlo Navach and Valentina Za Editing by Keith WeirOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ Italy's Monte dei Paschi says cash call 96.3% covered
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-03 | by ( Valentina Za | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

Concerns about tapping markets against the backdrop of the Ukraine war, record inflation and an impending economic slump had risked derailing Monte dei Paschi's (MPS) seventh cash call in 14 years. European Union laws curbing state aid to banks capped the Italian taxpayers' contribution at 1.6 billion euros, reflecting Rome's 64% stake in MPS. Underwriters led by global coordinators Bank of America (BAC.N), Citigroup , Credit Suisse (CSGN.S) and Mediobanca (MDBI.MI) will be left holding 93 million euros in shares, MPS said. Having committed up to 200 million euros towards the issue, AXA is expected to emerge as the Tuscan bank's second-biggest shareholder. ($1 = 1.0265 euro)($1 = 1.0259 euros)Reporting by Valentina Za; Editing by Jonathan Oatis and Andrea RicciOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ Fondazione CRT agrees 5 mln euro investment in Monte dei Paschi cash call - source
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-27 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: 1 min

MILAN, Oct 27 (Reuters) - Italian banking foundation Fondazione CRT on Thursday approved a 5 million euro investment in the Monte dei Paschi di Siena's (BMPS.MI) new share issue, a foundation source said. The decision comes after fellow foundations Fondazione Cariplo and Fondazione SanPaolo this week answered an informal request by Italy’s Treasury to back Monte dei Paschi's capital raising efforts. Reporting by Andrea Mandala, writing by Valentina Za; editing by Agnieszka FlakOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Lukoil's ISAB refinery in Sicily stands to be hit by an embargo on seaborne Russian oil that comes into force on Dec. 5, putting at risk jobs in Italy's poorer south and the country's refining capacity. Although Lukoil is not affected by the sanctions, the ISAB plant has been forced to rely solely on Russian oil after creditor banks halted financing and stopped providing guarantees the refinery needs to buy oil from alternative suppliers. The sources said the government was trying to find ways to ensure the plant can receive financing from lenders and remain operational. The goal is to allow ISAB to buy elsewhere the oil it needs, two of the sources said. A sale to non-Russian buyers would avert the closure of the ISAB plant, which accounts for around 20% of Italian refining capacity and directly employs some 1,000 workers.

☆ UniCredit ups 2022 profit goal after Q3 earnings beat
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-26 | by ( Valentina Za | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

MILAN, Oct 26 (Reuters) - Italy's No.2 bank UniCredit (CRDI.MI) on Wednesday raised its 2022 profit goal above 4.8 billion euros ($4.8 billion), helped by higher interest rates and lower loan loss provisions that also drove quarterly earnings above forecasts. UniCredit posted a profit for July-September of 1.71 billion euros, well above analysts' consensus forecast of 1.00 billion euros provided by the bank. UniCredit had already improved its 2022 guidance in July, indicating a net profit target of around 4 billion euros. Quarterly earnings were also boosted by much higher than expected trading income, which UniCredit said had been helped by companies' demand for hedging products. The erosion reflects a second share buyback UniCredit is carrying out as it hits a goal of returning 3.75 billion euros of last year's earnings to shareholders.

And Italy's UniCredit (CRDI.MI) raised its 2022 profit goal, helped by higher interest rates and lower loan loss provisions that also drove quarterly earnings above forecasts. For years, banks bemoaned ultra loose monetary policy, but now higher interest rates means banks can start to benefit from the increased gap between what they charge borrowers and what they pay savers. Standard Chartered's third-quarter profit surged 40% as higher interest rates boosted the emerging markets-focused bank's income, giving it ammunition to upgrade its revenue outlook despite a weakening global economy. For Santander, higher loan loss provisions in key markets like Brazil and the United States overshadowed better than expected third-quarter earnings. While benefiting from higher interest rates, banks also face the unwinding of a scheme that buoyed their profits for years.

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