Veneto Banca-Pop.Vicenza merger aired (3)

(ANSA) - Milan, October 28 - 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.
    Quaestio said the business plans should aim for a "definitive relaunch" of the two Veneto banks.
    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".
    Last month the recently bailed-out bank posted a 795-million-euro loss in the first half of the year.
    The balance sheet was weighed down, a statement said, by an increase in credit cover, the effects of the "contested exit" of Cattolica from the insurance market, and the litigation risk linked to new shares.
    Without these factors, the loss would have been 85 million euros, the bank said.
    As for Veneto Banca, also bailed out by Atlante, it was set for a listing this summer but that was nixed because of poor demand.