by Mike ‘Mish’ Shedlock
Mish Talk
Italy’s third largest bank by assets, Banca Monte dei Paschi is on the death bead. It’s been there since mid-2014.
Italian banks in general have €200 billion in non-performing loans. They have another pile of troubled loans that are late just some of the time.
To address the problem, Prime minister Matteo Renzi hatched a half-baked scheme dubbed “Atlas”. The idea was to leverage a mere €5 Billion to address a €200 billion hole.
As predicted, “Atlas” quickly died. Now, Renzi wants to use Brexit as an excuse to use state funds to bail out Banca Monte dei Paschi, but German chancellor Angela Merkel shot down that idea on Wednesday.