Mestre (Venice), 11 February 2019 – The Board of Directors of Banca IFIS met today under the chairmanship of Sebastien Egon Fürstenberg and approved the preliminary results for the year 2018.
The 2018 draft financial statements will be approved on 07 March 2019.
«In 2018, Banca IFIS continued growing across all business segments thanks to the excellent work of the entire team, generating 147 million Euro in net profit despite the provisions set aside on some significant positions that concerned the whole banking system: excluding these, the result would have been considerably better» said Giovanni Bossi, Banca IFIS CEO . «In the Enterprises segment, we are consolidating our market share thanks to our ability to offer appropriate and timely solutions. In the last quarter of 2018 we saw strong demand for credit from Small and Medium Enterprises, as factoring volumes and new leases rose by 13% and 20%, respectively, compared to the prior period.
As for the NPL segment, in the second half of the year we resumed purchases at a steady pace after the slowdown in the first six months, when in our opinion prices were excessively high. We thus achieved our targets in terms of volumes and price, acquiring 3,6 billion Euro worth of Non-Performing Loans. The par value of the proprietary NPL portfolio amounted to 15,8 billion Euro at 31 December 2018. Last year, continued efficiency gains at our debt collection structures allowed us to recover 181,3 million Euro just through collection operations (+41% from 128 million Euro in 2017).
Funding remains buoyant: throughout 2018 we promptly modulated it based on our needs. In mid-January 2019 we launched a new campaign for the rendimax savings account, with an outstanding positioning in terms of interest rates, in order to execute the 2019 funding plan. The results have been excellent: in the past 20 days we have raised approximately 140 million Euro in net new funding».
«In 2019, we expect approximately 140-160 million Euro profits despite the ca. 50% reduction in the positive contribution of the reversal PPA (92 million Euro in 2018), and CET1 to moderately improve with the prospect that the business will continue growing and despite increasingly burdensome banking regulations. In the current year, our strategy will focus on expanding the range of services and products as well as lending volumes to SMEs, consolidating our role as a partner that helps companies grow and reaffirming our support to Italy’s economy» added Giovanni Bossi.
«With the acquisition of FBS, the Banca IFIS Group has become Italy’s fourth-largest player in terms of managed and proprietary gross non-performing loans. Today, we represent a joint platform consisting of nearly 1.500 employees and independent professionals/law firms — a true non-performing loan industry. Over the next few months, we will refine our collection strategy by combining the expertise of Banca IFIS and FBS, streamlining non-performing loan servicing operations by implementing digital technologies and innovating our processes».