Carispezia


Crédit Agricole Carispezia S.p.A. formerly known as Cassa di Risparmio della Spezia S.p.A., or Carispezia in short, is an Italian savings bank, which is part of Crédit Agricole Italia, the Italian arm of French banking group Crédit Agricole.
Since 2016 the brand Crédit Agricole Italia was used for the whole banking group.

History

Found in 1842, Carispezia became a società per azioni in 1992, which split the bank non-profit making ownership and banking operation. Cassa di Risparmio delle Provincie Lombarde also became a minority shareholder of the bank for 25 billion lire nominal value of share capital.

Cariplo & Banca Intesa era

In 1995, Carispezia was merged with the saving bank of Alessandria and Carrara, with Cariplo and the foundations of the banks became the new shareholder of a new holding company Carinord Holding SpA, which held 68.09% of Carispezia shares, and 31.91% shares remain held by Fondazione Carispezia. In 1998, Cariplo held 30.94% shares of Carinord Holding.
In 1998 Cariplo merged with Banco Ambrosiano Veneto to form Banca Intesa, which the shares of Carinord Holding held by Cariplo was transferred to Banca Intesa.
In 2002, the saving bank of Alessandria was split from the union. Carinord 2 SpA was formed, with Banca Intesa held 41.14%, Fondazione Carispezia held 31.83%, Fondazione CR Carrara held 27.03%. Fondazione Carispezia was the de facto major shareholder through direct and indirect holding of Carispezia's shares.
As part of Banca Intesa ended in 2003, which Carinord 2 was acquired by Banca CR Firenze and Banca Carige. Banca Intesa would received €115 million for its 41.14% shares on Carinord 2.

Banca CR Firenze era

In 2004 Banca CR Firenze completed the takeover of Carispezia, which the bank acquired the shares of Carinord 2 from the foundation. in 2006 the foundation further decreased its direct ownership on Carispezia to 20%.

Return to Intesa

In 2007, Intesa Sanpaolo, the successor of Banca Intesa, merged with Banca CR Firenze by shares exchange. In 2008 the privatization was completed, thus Carispezia finally acted as a subsidiary of Intesa instead of a loose shareholding union.

Crédit Agricole era

However, in 2011, as part of Crédit Agricole further direct investment into Italy as well as disinvestment in Intesa Sanpaolo, Carispezia was acquired by the French banking group, and place under the ownership of its Italian subsidiary, Cariparma.
The brand Carispezia was survived from the takeover, despite under the name "Carispezia-Crédit Agricole" in the logo. Nevertheless, in 2016 the banking group started to use Crédit Agricole Italia as their brand, with a new logo for their subsidiary and a common website http://www.credit-agricole.it.

Sponsorship

Carispezia was the sponsor of Serie B club Spezia Calcio.