Intesa Sanpaolo, the Italy-based banking group and BNP Paribas have reached an agreement on Findomestic, the consumer credit company 50% owned by each Group. Accordingly, Intesa Sanpaolo sells its stake in Findomestic – held through its subsidiaries CR Firenze and CR Pistoia in two stages.
Under the terms of the agreement, a 25% stake is expected to be purchased on the part of the BNP Paribas Group in 2009. The remaining 25% stake is expected to be sold between 2011 and 2013, in one of the following ways by choice of the BNP Paribas Group: a purchase on the part of the BNP Paribas Group itself, an IPO or a sale to a third party, or by an exit mechanism which affords Intesa Sanpaolo Group substantial security about these options being carried out.
The transaction enables BNP Paribas to rejuvenate Findomestic’s development, by implementing a new business and industrial strategy in the rapidly changing context of the Italian consumer finance market.
Excluding the recently approved capital increase (which will be treated on a euro by euro basis), the value of the first 25% stake is equal to E500 million. The value of the remaining stake is to be determined, within a range of E350 and E650 million, applying to Findomestic a shareholders’ equity multiple reckoned for a number of comparable companies.
Findomestic has been created 25 years ago by Cetelem (now BNP Paribas Personal Finance), to deploy its proprietary business model in Italy, in partnership with CR Firenze (now a subsidiary of Intesa Sanpaolo Group).
The Intesa Sanpaolo Group offers domestic commercial banking, corporate and investment banking, international commercial banking, public finance, asset management, and financial advisory services across 13 countries in Central-Eastern European markets and the Mediterranean basin.
