Mr. Corrado Passera, CEO of Intesa Sanpaolo Group, highlighted few key points regarding the Group performance in economy and society in general, including also the near future perspective, at the introduction speech for the presentation of half year results 2011.

The Group is reporting solid results in spite of the difficult market conditions in line with the targets set out in the business plan. The bank is becoming stronger and more resilient to manage external crises and the results reported indicate that this has been done successfully. Intesa Sanpaolo has focused on sustainable profitability, on reinforcing liquidity and solidity and on the capital strength – the Core Tier One is now at 10.2%.

Liquidity, solidity and capital strength remain the long term core values and Intesa Sanpaolo continue to pursue them even if it means making some short term sacrifices. Intesa Sanpaolo did not conducted any third party bond placements, satisfied its funding needs in advance,  lowered the trading activities and  maintained a conservative and prudential approach to loan growth.

Mr. Passera explained that there are no economic grounds for the loss of confidence in Italy. The fundamentals of the Italian economy remain strong – several Italian regions are among the strongest, most active and most competitive in Europe. Italy is one of the countries that will benefit most strongly from globalization due to the strength that the country has in many sectors with high growth potential – machine tools, home furnishing products, fashion, agriculture and food, tourism, healthcare and the growth in Italy’s export market all prove this. Italy is one of the few European countries with a primary surplus in its national accounts. Italy is one of the few countries that has already reformed its pensions and adopted a fully sustainable system
Of course there are measures required to stimulate economic growth but the Italian economy contains all the elements to deliver satisfactory growth over the medium term.

The disappointing performance of the stock is certainly due to the excessively negative view of Italy by the market and the fact that Intesa Sanpaolo is seen as a proxy for Italy

Mr. Passera closed his statement by saying that the business plan projects are   under way, including an important agreement being reached with the trade unions that will be fully outlined at the next quarterly results. The 8,000 redundancies, which will be offset by more than 4,000 jobs created, has been certainly the most challenging of the Business Plan projects.

INTESA SANPAOLO CONSOLIDATED RESULTS AS AT 30 JUNE 2011 (Press Release - English)