Banca Carige

A deteriorating loan book tied to small and medium-sized Ligurian enterprises, compounded by low interest rates and the aftermath of the European sovereign debt crisis, generated a stock of non-performing loans that eroded capital buffers. Successive capital raises failed because the bank's fragmented shareholder base could not agree on dilution terms, triggering European Central Bank intervention in 2019 (per Reuters, 2019).

The Malacalza family, Genoese industrialists with holdings in steel and energy, was the largest single shareholder by the 2010s, but no single entity held a comfortable controlling stake. The fragmented ownership structure — a mix of local foundations, retail investors, and the Malacalzas — made dispassionate recapitalization nearly impossible.

Carige no longer has independent investment posture. BPER absorbed the bank's branch network and deposit base, with full operational integration beginning in 2023. Carige's balance sheet is now consolidated into BPER's, and the legacy investment committee dissolved. The Carige brand survives only as a local retail banking franchise.

Its branch network concentrated overwhelmingly on Liguria — particularly Genoa province — and northwestern Tuscany. Through subsidiary Banca del Monte di Lucca it had a secondary presence in Lucca, but Carige never expanded meaningfully into Lombardy, the Veneto, or southern Italy, and had no international footprint.

Carige's wealth management division served Ligurian high-net-worth families, but it never operated as a dedicated family office or institutional allocator. The insurance subsidiary Carige Vita Nuova and mutual fund products through Carige Asset Management were retail-focused. No known managed-account platform for external institutional investors existed.