Soros is close to MPS

The Hungarian financier George Soros would be interested in joining MPS, as reported by the Italian newspaper Il Sole 24 Ore. Besides Soros, also Qatar and US funds would be ready for subscrition of the capital, which in any case should be less than 5 billion initially indicated. The plan and the bank accounts will be approved today by the board and disclosed to the financial community tomorrow.

The scheme, imagined by the MPS financial advisers would be to focus on the anchor investor that could cover the supply in the market with high amounts: some Qatari funds would be interested in investing €1.5 billion to €2.0 billion, while, the newspaper wrote just yesterday, another billion could come from two US large institutional investors: they would be, according to rumors in financial circles, George Soros and one of the kings of the US hedge fund, John Paulson.

Other contacts are underway with UK and US but the funds, according to the current operations of JP Morgan and Mediobanca, do not relate to large international private equity for the difficulty of ensuring a return (IRR) default. Meanwhile, it seems all uphill the Corrado Passera plane in which he was expected to depart in the business plan downstream ratings: there would in fact growing tensions on the request of the former Minister to carry out a 'due diligence' over Mps by Anglo-American funds he involved.

At the Milan Stock Exchange, Monte dei Paschi di Siena right now earns about 12% and rises above the threshold of 30 cents per share.