Poste has been an avid buyer of tax credits that building
companies in Italy benefited from under government incentive
schemes to promote energy efficiency.
To monetize the tax credits firms sold them on at a discount
instead of claiming them over a number of years.
Marred by frauds which saw companies claim credits by faking
invoices, the schemes have now been halted after they led to a
spike in Rome's budget deficit.
Poste forecast an operating profit of 2.5 billion euros this
year, up from 2.29 billion in 2022, and proposed hiking its
dividend per share by 10% for 2022 and by 9% the following year.
"The dividend-per-share guidance clearly showcases
management's confidence in its earnings and capital outlook
where we believe the market remains on the cautious side,"
Morgan Stanley analysts said.
($1 = 0.9228 euros)
(Additional reporting by Alvise Armellini; Editing by Gianluca
Semeraro, Jan Harvey and Alexander Smith)
(Adds details on one-off hits, tax credit provisions, replaces
baseline 2022 EBIT with headline figure)
By Valentina Za
MILAN, March 30 (Reuters) - Poste Italiane said
on Thursday it expected to increase its operating profit by 9%
this year after falling short of market expectations in 2022 due
to one-off charges, and proposed hiking its dividend per share
for both years.
Italy's post office, whose business spans areas from parcels
and mail to payments, insurance and financial services, said it
would be able to offset higher costs and the loss on an energy
start-up thanks to solid commercial trends driving revenues.
State-owned Poste said it had struck a deal with five top
global reinsurers in the fourth quarter to help manage "lapse
risks", or the risk that higher interest rates prompt customers
to redeem their insurance policies ahead of time.
This boosted its solvency ratio, a key measure of an
insurer's strength, to 253% by the end of December from 207% in
September, it said.
Poste's earnings before interest and tax (EBIT) of 237
million euros in the October-December period were 13% below
market consensus, analysts said, and its shares were down 0.3%
by 0757 GMT.
The earnings miss resulted from 320 million euros in
non-cash provisions which Poste booked in the last quarter on
its nine billion euro portfolio of tax credits.
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