In the end, the special commissioner of Eurovita, Alessandro Santoliquido, succeeded in an improbable enterprise, i.e., saving 400.000 clients trapped in the trouble caused by some of the most cunning Anglo-Saxon private equity funds that reached our beautiful country with hungry spirits.
In order to achieve his goal, Alessandro Santoliquido convened the cavalry: Allianz, Generali, Intesa Sanpaolo, Poste Italiane and UnipolSai.
Through a newly built newco, the five stars of insurance (Intesa Vita, Generali, Poste Vita, UnipolSai and Allianz) are going to take over Eurovita in exchange for a nominal sum. Then, they will divide the business in equal parts.
Moreover, policies will almost certainly be shelved by Ivass for a few weeks, so as to ensure the success of the operation.
The agreement of leading banks to act as grantors to smaller distributors has been a crucial element of the operation.
In fact, not reaching a solution would have been detrimental to leading insurance companies in Italy because, it is well known, the crisis in reputation of one individual operator tends to spread like wildfire over the whole sector.
The so-called system will take care of the insurance risk and of the costs linked to the integration of the business unit, including the incorporation of the Eurovita employees, bringing to the table a total turnover of approximately 500 million.
As for the distributors of Eurovita products, they will have to act as grantors to subscribers of Eurovita policies.
In particular, when a client wishes to redeem their policy, distributors will have to take over until the end of the contract, benefiting from the possible returns and repayment of principal.
This was the main element of the agreement, defined on the basis of the willingness of big credit institutions to cover for institutes which had distributed Eurovita policies to their clients.
Certainly, the big five acted in their interest, so as to avoid a systemic crisis; however, their participation has been crucial, as was the contribution of Alessandro Santoliquido, who managed to convince them with a sustainable project.
Today, 400.000 savers are sighing with relief; with them, the financial advisors who offered one of the separately managed accounts, now shelved, but also the managers of banks as well as IVASS itself, the Institute for the Supervision of Insurance.
Just one last touch of colour: in mid-July, on the occasion of the FABI (that is, the main trade union organization of the Italian banking sector) conference, Carlo Cimbri, number one of the UnipolSai group, claimed that “400.000 people have impudently entrusted Eurovita with their savings”.
In truth, none of the subscribers of Eurovita policies nor the financial advisors or their banks, nor even IVASS had suspected anything. And, there are, to our knowledge, no previous declarations from Cimbri in this regard.
It would be good if, for once, the stables were to close before the oxen try to escape. In any case, we can certainly thank the five companies and, especially, Alessandro Santoliquido for their commendable work.
Nicola Ronchetti