Banks and debt
Monte dei Paschi: the State rescued it and has not yet got its money back. Now Intesa wants to buy it and promises its shareholders €61 billion in dividends
12 November 2026, 16:13
Between 2017 and 2022 the Treasury spent about €7 billion on the Siena bank and has not yet got all of it back. On 10 November Intesa Sanpaolo published the prospectus for its bid: the plan offers the new group's shareholders five years of dividends, and families and small businesses less competition.
Subscription software is a cost of the year, purchased software is an investment
12 November 2026, 08:09
Since this week the Ministry of Enterprises has been covering part of what small and medium-sized businesses spend on cloud services and cybersecurity, subscription software included. Before choosing between a subscription and a purchase, it is worth knowing that the two routes end up on different lines of the income statement, and that the EBITDA read by banks changes even when the spending stays the same.
Variable-rate loans: an interest rate swap protects a business only if it mirrors the loan
9 November 2026, 08:17
With euro-area inflation accelerating, markets expect the European Central Bank to raise the cost of money again soon, and businesses with indexed debt may be offered a hedging contract by their bank. It works only if it follows the loan in amount, dates and benchmark, and what it costs can be read before signing.
Superbonus: the budget pushes back to 2036 the credits banks and businesses were due to use in 2027. Without interest
4 November 2026, 16:13
Article 37 of the budget bill splits into ten annual instalments the 20.5 billion in tax credits falling due next year. The Treasury lightens its own debt; those who wait lose value.
What a bank reads in the Centrale dei rischi before granting a loan
1 November 2026, 07:55
Italy's Economy Minister has pointed out to the banks that less and less credit is reaching the smallest businesses. When a company applies for financing, besides the financial statements the lender reads the Centrale dei rischi, which shows month by month how the company uses the credit it has obtained from the whole system.
NFP/EBITDA ratio: how it is calculated and what it measures
26 October 2026, 09:43
The ratio between net financial position and EBITDA expresses debt in years of margin. The figures are taken from the financial statements, leases included, and the result is compared with reading bands and with the caps written into loan contracts.
Equity shows how much of the company the shareholders have paid for
21 October 2026, 09:42
The ratio between equity and total assets, the equity ratio, shows how much of a company the shareholders have paid for and how many losses it can withstand. It is read over three sets of accounts, with shareholder loans among the debts.
Liquidity ratio: how it is calculated and what it should be
19 October 2026, 10:34
There are two versions, with and without inventory, and the gap between them shows how much the payments of the coming months depend on stock. Reference thresholds only hold for the formula they were built on.
A company's creditworthiness shows in the spread, not in the interest rate
18 October 2026, 09:36
According to the Financial Times, Anthropic is offering Blackstone more than 10 per cent on the part repaid last of the debt that funds the chips intended for Anthropic: whoever lends charges for the risk. In a company's loans that charge has a name, the spread, and it can be worked out contract by contract.
Bialetti returns to profit: just over one cent for every euro of normalised EBITDA
10 October 2026, 18:19
Bialetti opens two shops in Turin and hires five people, after closing 2025 with €24 million of normalised EBITDA and about €0.3 million of profit: in between lie, among other things, depreciation, interest, taxes and non-recurring charges.
Money idle in one account, an overdraft in another: the interest is paid all the same
10 October 2026, 09:37
In August, according to the Bank of Italy, businesses earned an average of 0.63 per cent on money in current accounts and paid 4.33 per cent on overdrafts. A business with cash at one bank and debt at another pays the difference, even though its net debt does not change.
American Express fined $350 million: its risk assessment looked at current accounts, while $13 billion of suspicious transactions went through its cards
9 October 2026, 18:20
The US authority that supervises national banks has fined American Express National Bank: among the failings, a risk assessment focused on current accounts, a narrow part of the business, and paying too little attention to cards, through which about $13 billion of transactions suspected of money laundering passed between 2014 and 2025, counting both the charges and the payments that settled them.
Storms in Lombardy, €376 million of damage: the compulsory policy pays for the machines, cash pays for the months of shutdown
7 October 2026, 09:36
Since 2026 every business must insure its buildings and plant against floods, landslides and earthquakes, but the compulsory policy only reimburses damaged assets: the weeks in which the company produces nothing and keeps paying remain uncovered, and they need measuring beforehand.
In Lombardy those running companies are increasingly over fifty: generational handover is prepared early, and on the numbers too
4 October 2026, 10:24
Confindustria Lombardia launches Bridge Up to support succession in family businesses; the data show it has been put off for twenty-five years, and that whoever takes over must be able to present a plan, not just a surname.
Amazon sells its chips and rents them back: selling an asset and leasing it back is debt under another name, and in an SME's accounts it weighs on the margin
3 October 2026, 09:54
A sale and leaseback brings in cash at once and pays it back in instalments; under Italian accounting standards it moves the whole lease payment above EBITDA, and the bank sees the debt anyway.
French inflation keeps pushing rates up: the rise reaches the accounts through variable-rate debt, on the date written in the contract
30 September 2026, 09:46
In France prices have risen by 3 per cent in a year, and the ECB, which has already raised rates twice in 2026, remains under pressure. For a business the rise does not arrive on the day of the announcement: it arrives through Euribor, only on variable-rate debt and on the reset date written in the contract. It is a sum that can be worked out in advance.
A small loan costs more than a large one: 4.37 against 3.55
22 September 2026, 18:06
The Bank of Italy says so every month and nobody reads it. Below a million you pay almost a point more. Meanwhile, money in the current account earns 0.69.
The factory building is an investment. It should be judged like any other
21 September 2026, 14:12
Your money is tied up in the factory building, and almost always nobody has worked out what it earns. The right comparison is not mortgage payments against rent: it is what that capital would have earned if put to work in the business.
How much debt is too much? It is the wrong question, for a state as for a business
21 September 2026, 13:14
Rising yields, wide deficits, huge debts. The instinctive reaction is that there is too much debt, and it is the same mistaken reaction people have in front of a company's accounts: the stock tells you how much, not whether you can cope.
When debt speaks: the indicator that reveals a business crisis
Training
In previous posts we learned how to read financial statements, but one fundamental issue remains to be addressed: knowing how to recognise the warning signs of a crisis.
The numbers that really matter: reading the financial statements to steer the business
Training
The balance sheet, the profit and loss account and the cash flow statement tell the story of the company: now it’s time to understand how to read them to make real decisions.
Company financial statements explained (really) in simple terms – Part I
Training
Accounting helps us tell the story of the business through numbers: now it’s time to understand where all these numbers come together.