Italy's Pop Milano to cut jobs -report
MILAN, Oct 30 (Reuters) - Italy's Banca Popolare di Milano (PMII.MI) will present a three-year industrial plan in December which will cut jobs and look for alliances with international partners, an executive said in a newspaper interview on Friday.
The bank, which is looking to form a broad-based partnership with France's Credit Mutuel, expects to make 515 redundancies and will look to work with partners in bancassurance, consumer credit and asset management. It expects cost savings of 45 million euros ($66 million).
"For those who know the internal dynamics of BPM, this plan is revolutionary," director General Fiorenzo Dalu told business daily Il Sole 24 Ore. "Until a short while ago, the term 'job cut' was a taboo but the financial crisis has shown that there need to be acts of responsibility."
In bancassurance he said Pop Milano was negotiating a price to liquidate a partnership with Fondiaria-SAI (FOSA.MI).
"In the meantime we intend to finalise talks by the end of November for a broader partnership with (France's) Credit Mutuel, with whom we aim to collaborate also in life and damages policies," Dalu said. A collaboration with Credit Mutuel on consumer credit was also possible.
"At the moment we are we are putting together our project autonomously ... With (Credit) Mutuel we will also look at studying a joint venture in consumer credit. If it will not be possible to work together we will find other partners," Dalu said.
Pop Milano is taking up 500 million euros in state-backed bonds, with which it will have a core Tier 1 capital adequacy ratio of 7.95 percent.
With regard to financial results, Dalu said the business trend was "satisfying", adding there were now some tentative recovery signals. ($1=.6785 euros) (Editing by Greg Mahlich)
