The CEO of Banca Mediolanum, Massimo Doris, the highest responsible for the Italian parent company and son of the founder and reference of financial advice, Ennio Doris, assured this Wednesday that the project in Spain - Banco Mediolanum - "is going well, with very relevant growth, especially in the last 7-8 years".
During his speech at the event for the 30th anniversary of the company's listing, held this morning at the Borsa Italiana, he recalled the firm's beginnings in the Spanish market. "It was a good adventure, but it wasn't easy because a bank with that model didn't exist in Spain," he pointed out.
Banca Mediolanum landed in Spain in the year 2000 by acquiring Fibanc, a "small" financial entity that they purchased with their own resources, "without resorting to stock market capital".
The executive acknowledged, however, that they did not manage to replicate that performance in Germany "because it is a very different country" from theirs. In Italy, he explained, they also carried out other corporate operations that were "not impossible, but difficult," due to the group's unique characteristics.
Recalling the company's stock market debut three decades ago, Doris stressed that "the need to go public meant respecting certain requirements, complying with them, having a very rigorous governance structure, and that helps us in many different areas." "We wanted the group to become an institution," he added.
Looking to the future, Doris insisted that the group's growth will be based on two pillars: technological investment and personal interaction. "Banca Mediolanum will continue to invest in technology, in artificial intelligence, and will continue to invest in incorporating new financial advisors because the relationship will be fundamental," he stated. As a sign of this commitment, by the end of the current fiscal year, the group will have added 900 young people to its workforce.
30 years on the stock market and evolution of the listing
Banca Mediolanum debuted on the Borsa Italiana 30 years ago "for liquidity and transparency" at an initial price of 12,000 lire. On its first day of trading, the shares appreciated by 30%, and in the last year, they have accumulated an advance of 33% on the stock exchange. This Wednesday, around 1:37 PM, the shares were trading at 19.51 euros after falling 1.04%.
Since its debut, the stock has gone through key episodes such as the dot-com bubble, the sovereign debt crisis, and the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers. This last event caused Banca Mediolanum's shares to plummet by 75% and led management to consider the possibility of delisting the company in an internal meeting.
"We were not a traditional insurer, nor an insurance manager, nor a bank," recalled Banca Mediolanum's investor relations manager, Alessandra Lanzone, who also specified that the firm obtained banking entity status the following year. In that context, the group decided not to open a network of physical offices, unlike its competitors, who in Italy measured their strength by the number of branches.