MILAN: Italian banking bailout fund Atlante has effectively lost a 3.4 billion euro ($3.96 billion)investment it made in two Veneto-based lenders after the two banks were liquidated by the government, Quaestio, the manager of Atlante, said on Thursday.

As a result, Quaestio said in a statement it was now considering winding down Atlante, which was set up in April 2015 with contributions from Italian banks and other financial institutions.

Atlante had a total endowment of 4.25 billion euros. It put the 800 million euros that were not invested in the Veneto banks into a spin-off fund, known as Atlante 2, that was created to buy bad loans from ailing banks.

With further contributions from other institutions, Atlante 2 built up a firepower of 2.2 billion euros that it has now almost entirely committed to a string of bad loan deals.

 

Copyright Reuters, 2017

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