Derivatives scandal drags Monte Paschi into Italy election race

MILAN Wed Jan 23, 2013 3:36pm EST

1 of 5. Beppe Grillo gestures as he talks during an interview with Reuters in Pomezia, near Rome January 23, 2013.

Credit: Reuters/Tony Gentile (ITALY - Tags: POLITICS BUSINESS ELECTIONS)

Related Topics











The bank's executives also face a grilling by Beppe Grillo, a comedian now leading the anti-establishment 5-Star Movement, which could emerge as Italy's third-biggest party in the vote.

Grillo, a Monte dei Paschi shareholder, said he would attend the bank's extraordinary shareholder meeting on Friday to say that the bank should be nationalized.

"I don't see why we should give almost 4 billion euros in public money to cover up a bunch of thieves," Grillo told Reuters in an interview in his campaign camper after a rally in Pomezia, Italy, on Wednesday.

"The thieves' assets should be seized. We need to start over and let the state take charge."

"The PD is no longer a party. It's a bank," Grillo said, adding that the relationship between Monte dei Paschi and the PD "must be broken."

Monte dei Paschi called Friday's meeting to approve the terms of the state bailout, but it is set to be overshadowed by shareholder anger over the derivatives loss.


"I hope the political debate pays attention to the fact that we are the country's third biggest bank and have 31,000 employees," Viola said in an interview with SkyTG24 TV.







($1 = 0.7526 euros)

(Additional reporting by Steve Scherer in Pomezia, Italy.; Editing by Mark Potter and Jim Marshall)