Top investor sells 6.5% of MPS

Fintech takes 4.5% stake, BTG Pactual Europe buys 2%

(ANSA) - Rome, March 31 - The biggest stakeholder in Monte dei Paschi di Siena (MPS) said Monday that it has sold 6.5% of the troubled Italian bank. The MPS Foundation said it had sold 4.5% of the bank to Fintech, a United States-based investment fund owned by Mexican businessman David Martinez. BTG Pactual Europe, a subsidiary of an Brazilian investment bank, bought 2%.

The MPS Foundation said it now has a 5.5% stake. MPS President Alessandro Profumo said last week that the bank will proceed with a capital increase to raise three billion euros in May. The planned share issue has been tied to repaying part of the 4.1-billion euros in State aid that MPS received from the Italian government as part of a plan to turn the lender around. Analysts have said the bank may risk nationalization if it fails to generate enough capital to repay State aid.

Italy's third-largest bank was thrown into crisis in January 2013 when it emerged that a shady series of derivative and structured-finance deals produced losses of 720 million euros. Siena prosecutors have been pursuing charges of alleged bribery, corruption, tax evasion and other allegedly illicit operations at MPS, which were either related to the bank's nine-billion-euro acquisition of rival Antonveneta in 2008 or the period following the takeover.