Popolare Bari: two suspects for the Fusillo crash

The Bari Public Prosecutor has entered two former managers of Banca Popolare di Bari in the investigation into the crash of the companies of the Fusillo di Noci group (Bari) in the register of suspects for bankruptcy. I am Gianluca Jacobini, ex co-general manager, son of the ex president Marco Jacobini, and Nicola Loperfido, ex head of credit management. The bank, according to the prosecutors' hypothesis, would have contributed to the bankruptcy of the companies by continuing to provide credit and thus increasing its debt.

On 12 December last, on the eve of the bank commissioner, the board of directors initiated the procedures for a liability action against Jacobini and Loperfido. The attention of the Bari judiciary on their involvement in the crash of the Fusillo group companies dates back to last summer, when the Guardia di Finanza, at the disposal of the assistant prosecutor Roberto Rossi and the replacement Lanfranco Marazia, carried out searches in the offices of the companies later declared failed (at the time four entrepreneurs were investigated for fraudulent bankruptcy and self-laundering) and in the general management of the bank. The investigations of the Guardia di Finanza "have made it possible to bring out the role of Banca Popolare di Bari - explained the investigators already at the time of the searches - as the main creditor of the companies subjected to bankruptcy proceedings, which were found exposed with the credit institution for a figure just under 140 million euros, following the huge credit lines given over the years ". According to the findings of the Bari financiers, the bank, despite being a creditor of over 100 million euros from the companies of the Fusillo group, at the time in the arrangement with creditors procedure, in March 2019 would have disbursed new finance in their favor for about 40 million euros . An "extremely onerous intervention - noted the Gdf - which adds to the many already carried out in the past, on whose financial sustainability it seems necessary to investigate". And it is precisely on the credit lines granted by the bank to the Fusillo companies from 2010 to 2019 that the investigations of the last months have been concentrated, up to the current hypothesis of bankruptcy also against the former managers of the Popolare di Bari.