Shares in Banca Ifis tumbled on Friday after the Italian specialty lender slashed its profit guidance for the year and launched a process to sell its non-performing loan business, a sharp strategic shift that rattled investors and forced a trading halt on the Milan exchange.
The stock fell about 24% and was automatically suspended for excess downward pressure, with one Italian outlet reporting an intraday drop of as much as 40% at the depths of the selloff before the shares recovered some ground. The slump stood out on a day when the broader Italian banking sector was already under pressure and the country's main index opened in negative territory.
The trigger was a substantial cut to the bank's outlook. The Venice-based lender, controlled by the von Fürstenberg family, said it now expects net profit of between €100 million and €110 million for 2026, down sharply from a previous forecast of €170 million to €190 million. Crucially, the bank said the updated guidance does not include any gain from deconsolidating the bad-loan unit, nor any impact from the outcome of an ongoing supervisory inspection, leaving room for further revisions.
At the center of the announcement was a decision by the board to launch a competitive market process to sell the bank's non-performing loan operations, run through two dedicated subsidiaries, with the aim of removing them from its balance sheet. The portfolio earmarked for sale carries a net book value of around €1.5 billion, consisting mainly of small, unsecured claims. The bank framed the move as part of a broader repositioning toward commercial banking and an expanded offering for businesses, entrepreneurs and households, accelerating a transformation away from its historical focus on distressed debt.
The profit cut was driven largely by a series of one-off provisions. The bank said the Bank of Italy had conducted a general on-site inspection, prompting it to take a more conservative view of certain large exposures and to book roughly €30 million in pre-tax provisions, equivalent to about 0.20% of its total lending. It recorded a further €40 million or so of provisions tied to securitized non-performing portfolios acquired through last year's purchase of a smaller rival, reflecting updated recovery expectations. The final report from the supervisory inspection has not yet been issued.
The strategic pivot follows a period of significant change for the group, which completed two large acquisitions in 2025 that reshaped its perimeter and lifted its reported profit. Management argued that exiting the bad-loan business, also in light of evolving regulatory rules on how distressed exposures must be provisioned over time, would strengthen the bank's capital position while sharpening its focus on lending to companies and households.
The bank said it would also undertake a review of its cost base to fit the new operating context, and its chief executive was scheduled to host a call with analysts and investors to explain the changes. For shareholders, the combination of a steep guidance cut, fresh provisions and a pending regulatory verdict overshadowed the longer-term rationale for the pivot, at least in the immediate market reaction, even as the bank cast the deconsolidation as a step toward a simpler, more capital-efficient business.