Questio, the management company
of the Atlante bank bailout fund, on Friday wrote to the boards
of Banca Popolare di Vicenza and Veneto Banca suggesting they
should consider a merger in the business plans they have to put
to the European central Bank by the end of the year.
"In the framework of the plan it is opportune for the two banks
to assess a possible merger scenario and clearly identify
synergies with respect to a stand-alone situation," Quaestio
said. The Banca Popolare di Vicenza said Wednesday it would have
to shed 1,300-1,500 jobs as part of a restructuring essential to
its survival after a recent bail-out. "We must convince the
trade union organisations that we have these redundancies, for
which we have to find a solution," said the bank's president,
Gianni Mion. He said these were "structural" redundancies, it
isn't a temporary thing". "We're not in a position to wait".
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