Economics
Households on the Hook for Italy’s Next Bailout
- Depositors own almost half of most vulnerable junior bonds
- EU rules require investors share burden in recapitalization
Pedestrians pass by a Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena
Photographer: Alessia Pierdomenico/BloombergThis article is for subscribers only.
Vincenzo Imperatore wants you to know he was just following orders: Selling risky bonds to customers seeking safe retirement nest eggs was only part of the job. When financial markets shut during the financial crisis, depositors were Italian banks’ most reliable source of funding.
“I was getting five, six calls a day from my bosses pushing me to sell them,” says Imperatore, who helped sell products to retail customers for six years at UniCredit SpA in the Naples region and has written two tell-all books about his experiences. “I was instructing the local salesmen to do the same.”