It
is not easy to comment on the results of Banca di Roma’s privatisation
without using triumphalist expressions - although they’d be justified -
but they are not part of the style of the Bank Cesare Geronzi is presiding
over. It is clear that the success was such that it could fill all those
who participated in the operation with satisfaction. And IRI (Institute
for Industrial Reconstruction) is on top of the list: thanks to the privatisation,
it collected - for each percentage point of the Bank share it owns - some
83 billion lira, totalling 1,900 billion lira that partly derived from
the sale of cash shares and partly from the assignment of convertible bonds.
The success of the placing
that attracted some 292 thousand new partners, is due to what can be called
an actual teamwork. If, on the one hand, J.W. Thompson’s advertising campaign
- whose neologism ‘Snafùz’ is now part of today’s language - managed
to catch the savers’ attention, on the other the institutional investors
certainly appreciated both the appointment of Giorgio Brambilla (former
Managing Director of Credito Bergamasco) as the new bank’s General Manager,
and the plans of reorganisation, of transfer of non-strategic activities
and of “clean-up” of bad and doubtful debts carried out by the company’s
top managers. Actually, as Geronzi and Brambilla maintained, the bold choice
involving the bad debts and the goodwill for 2,700 billion lira paved the
way for the new start. The new benefits, furthermore, should begin to be
seen already in 1998.
The goal of the 1997-2000
strategic plan set up together with consulting company McKinsey is the
growth of the ROI (Return on Investment) which will be estimated around
6% in 1998, 8% in 1999 and 10% in the year 2000. The experts will try to
achieve these results mainly through an increased earning margin following
a considerable increase of the earning on services, the improvement of
the overall efficiency and the transfer of non-strategic activities. An
unquestionably demanding, although achievable, “goal”, as the new General
Director underscored: 80% of it, in fact, depends on the management and
the bank’s workers capabilities, whereas the remaining 20% depends on external
variables such as the economic trend. Banca di Roma will thus have to cope
with a very challenging path in the next twenty years. A journey, as the
press campaign maintained, that is going to be made along with over three
hundred thousand shareholders who thought the operation was a very good
bargain. A leading role in the successful privatisation operation was played
by the Bank officers as well. Most of the subscriptions, in fact, took
place at the about 1,600 bank-counters throughout the country. This aspect
is unquestionably important because it highlights the presence of the company
at a national level and the faithful relationship between the bank and
its customers. The satisfaction on the part of Banca di Roma’s top officers
for the successful work of managers and dealers, however, will become tangible
with the award they’ll receive. It would be restrictive to attribute the
success of the operation only to officers and to the top management, however.
The whole structure actively participated so that this operation, that
deeply affects the Bank’s life, could be carried out in the best possible
way. The first people to be convinced of the efficiency and success of
the plan devised by the Board of Directors, however, should not be investors
but rather those who must work every day to carry out such plan, and even
more so today, for the over three hundred thousand shareholders who are
counting on them. It is certainly satisfying, especially for those who
believed in the Bank’s shares and in its recovery capabilities. |
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Mensile di Economia, Attualita` e Cultura
