ROME, March 20 (Reuters) - Italian companies are looking
at the health of the banks they rely on in the wake of the
current financial turmoil and turning more conservative over how
they invest their cash, the head of the country's Association of
Corporate Treasurers (AITI) said.
AITI President Nevio Boscariol told Reuters on Monday most
companies would likely wait to see whether steps taken to calm
financial markets including the weekend merger of Credit Suisse
and UBS had the desired effect before taking any decision.
However, he said there were already signs of "a gradual
movement towards a kind of flight-to-quality" after the
weaknesses exposed among certain banks over the past two weeks.
"Certainly everyone is re-evaluating their banking quality,
those who are well structured evaluate the banks they work with,
to work with those banks that show more solidity at the moment,"
Boscariol told Reuters.
"Treasurers must protect a company's cash, in cases such as
these they can become very conservative."
Separately, the chief financial officer of a large Italian
company told Reuters on condition of anonymity that they had not
taken any steps because the firm relied on a diversified pool of
top tier banks, but they would have moved away from mid-sized
banks in the current situation.
(Reporting by Stefano Bernabei
Writing by Keith Weir
Editing by Valentina Za)
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