Mestre (Venice), 11 February 2020 – The Board of Directors of Banca IFIS met today under the chairmanship of Ernesto Fürstenberg Fassio and approved the preliminary results for the year 2019. The 2019 draft financial statements will be approved on 12 March 2020.
“Banca IFIS is a profitable, well capitalised Italian bank with shareholders’ equity of 1,5 billion Euro; we boast a strong market position with a robust competitive advantage and a diversified business model with two core divisions: the Commercial and Corporate Banking segment focused on SMEs and the Non-Performing Loans (NPLs) segment,” commented Luciano Colombini, Chief Executive Officer of the Banca IFIS Group. “This year we are once again offering our shareholders a larger dividend, extending the Bank’s strong track record of solidity, which continues to make it possible to reward those who have decided to invest in Banca IFIS. As a further sign of the Bank’s ability to fully self-finance its growth, the CET1 ratio rose by 0,66% in 12 months to reach 10,96%.”
“In 2019 – a year in which the Bank faced important changes – we reported a profit of 123,1 million Euro, a result that was affected by the natural decrease in the PPA reversal, which, net of taxes, fell from 61 million Euro at the end of 2018 to 47 million Euro at the end of 2019.
In the NPL business, acquisition of a 100% interest in FBS was closed in 2019, expediting the integration process between the two businesses, which will yield considerable synergies, generated by the complementary nature of the expertise possessed by Banca IFIS and FBS. The achievement of our NPL acquisition targets of approximately 3 billion Euro is a further testament to our dynamic market presence and excellent execution capabilities. In the coming years, the strategy also calls for the business to expand into the large loan secured segment through the acquisition of specialised small servicer teams and constant efficiency gains in the recovery system.
In Commercial Banking, we continued to finance the real economy in 2019, confirming our role as a bank devoted to serving SMEs, while reaching our targets in terms of revenues and achieving a gradual decline in the loss rate, which in previous years reached extraordinary peak levels due to the crisis in the construction sector. In the near future we will further increase our presence in the small and medium enterprises segment and focus on constantly developing our distribution and operation model to include a wider range of products and investments in digital innovation that will allow us to further expand our customer base.”
“In 2019 we thus laid the foundation and groundwork for the next three years. The Business Plan, presented on 14 January, outlines the Bank’s strategy and the objectives to be reached by 2022, calling for a sustainable net profit of 147 million Euro driven by growth across all business units, a return on tangible equity of 8,9%, new investments of 60 million Euro and 190 new employees. The activities and projects described are already under way and will be pursued and monitored in the coming quarters,” concluded Luciano Colombini.
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