BPER Banca


BPER Banca S.p.A. formerly known as Banca Popolare dell'Emilia Romagna S.C. is an Italian banking group offering traditional banking services to individuals, corporate and public entities. The company is based in Modena and is a constituent of the FTSE MIB index.
The bank had branches in most of Italy, except in Aosta Valley and Friuli – Venezia Giulia. The bank is a majority shareholder of Piedmontese bank Cassa di Risparmio di Bra and Saluzzo, as well as minority shareholders of Fossano and Savigliano.

History

Banca Popolare dell'Emilia was formed by the merger of Banca Popolare di Modena with Banca Cooperativa di Bologna on 29 December 1983. The bank merged with Banca Popolare di Cesena to form Banca Popolare dell'Emilia Romagna on 1 May 1992. The bank acquired and absorbed many provincial and regional level Popular Bank and Saving Bank in 1990s to 2010s.

2000s

In February 2013, BPER acquired an additional 35.98% stake of CR Bra S.p.A. from the banking foundation of CR Bra for around €23.9 million. After the deal BPER owned 67% stake.
The bank was affected by Decree-Law N°3 of 2015, which required banks with assets more than €8 billion to transform from Cooperative society to Società per Azioni.
In 2016 the controlling stake in Cassa di Risparmio di Saluzzo was acquired from the banking foundation of CR Saluzzo. On 14 July 2016 a gross value of €450 million bad loans were sold to Algebris NPL Fund and Cerberus European Investments without recourse. Italian banks had the highest gross NPLs to total loan ratio in European Union ; BPER Group's gross NPLs to total loan ratio was 23.28% at 31 December 2015, or €11.395 billion in size in gross; Banco di Sardegna along had €2 billion as well as highest ratio among the group.
In late 2016 the bank was re-incorporated as BPER Banca S.p.A., as part of the mandatory process, the bank offered to buy back the shares for €3.8070, based on historical price of the bank. However, no share was repurchased, as well as the market value of the bank in the Borsa was bumped back to above that price.
On 2 March 2017 BPER Banca signed a contract to acquire Nuova Cassa di Risparmio di Ferrara for a nominal fee of €1. On 30 June the deal was completed.

Former subsidiaries

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Due to issuing new shares in the acquisitions of some banks, some banking foundations were the shareholders of the bank, namely Fondazione Banco di Sardegna, Fondazione Carispaq, Fondazione Monte Foggia, Fondazione di Vignola.
Norges Bank also owned about 2.062% shares.
UnipolSai owned 9,869% shares