MARIO (not his real name) from the pretty Italian city of Vicenza opened an account at a local bank in 1992. It afforded him an overdraft of the equivalent of €10,000. He needed it to pay the bills of his wholesale textiles company. Over the years his firm’s cash problems worsened. In 2013, after Mario had exceeded his overdraft limit by €7,000 ($9,300), the bank gave him an unsecured loan of €50,000.
The first repayment was due in January 2014, yet by June Mario had filed for voluntary bankruptcy. The bank—now owed €70,300—presented itself to the court as a creditor. It entered into an arrangement, but in December sold the loan for 5% of its book value to Banca IFIS, an Italian lender building a portfolio of soured debts. Banca IFIS employed an external debt collector and by the following April, Mario had repaid €17,000. Having made a tidy profit on its investment, Banca IFIS told the bankruptcy court the debt had been cleared.
It seems puzzling that Mario was granted a loan after being overdrawn for so long. Andrea Clamer, head of Banca IFIS’s bad-loans division, says such mysteries are central to understanding Italy’s bad-loan...Continue reading
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