Italy's Carige signs underwriting accord over new share issue

MILAN (Reuters) - Troubled Italian lender Banca Carige said on Saturday it planned to launch a new share issue for up to 560 million euros (£500 million) on Nov 22 after core shareholders and underwriters committed to back it. The capital raising, which is key to safeguard the bank’s future, had been thrown into doubt as Carige failed at the last minute to sign an accord with banks due to take on unsold shares. Carige said a group of core shareholders led by Malacalza Investimenti and Gabriele Volpi had committed to buy new shares so as to hold stakes in the bank amounting in total to 29.7 percent of the lender’s capital. Carige said it also had ‘first-allocation’ accords with some institutional investors. The cash call’s global coordinators Credit Suisse and Deutsche Bank and co-global coordinator Barclays have committed to take on unsold shares in the 500 million euro portion of the capital increase reserved to shareholders once excluding the commitments from core shareholders and institutional investors.