Parmalat's rescue managers prepared on Sunday to ask creditor banks for new loans to keep its factories running, as prosecutors broaden a multi-billion euro fraud probe to examine the role of financial institutions.
One week after the arrest of Parmalat founder Calisto Tanzi, investigators are striving to unravel a complex web of shell companies, offshore units and loans used by the now insolvent food and dairy group to mask its crumbling finances.
That would be well above the loan of roughly 25 million euros that banks granted Parmalat in December to avoid default on an outstanding bond. The three banks' exposure to Parmalat debt already exceeds one billion euros.
Turnaround expert Enrico Bondi, who took over at Parmalat in mid-December just as the group's troubles exploded into an international scandal, will kick off a series of meetings with bankers on Monday.
He is expected to ask Parmalat's main banks, including Capitalia, Intesa and San Paolo IMI, for 50 million to 100 million euros to pay wages and suppliers, Italian media reported.
At the start of the third week of what US regulators have called one of the world's most brazen corporate fraud scandals, the spotlight has also turned on big international banks.
A senior inspector from the US Securities and Exchange Commission was quoted on Saturday as saying authorities were investigating the way Bank of America and other banks sold billions of euros worth of Parmalat bonds.
"We need to understand if they acted in a way that was negligent or reckless or otherwise," Lawrence West, associate director of enforcement at the Securities and Exchange Commission, told Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera.
Newspaper Il Sole 24 Ore reported over the weekend that both Spanish bank Santander Central Hispano and Germany's Deutsche Bank could also be questioned over their ties to the group.
Deutsche Bank had a more than five percent stake in Parmalat until mid-December. Santander and Deutsche Bank declined to comment.
Magistrates in Parma, Parmalat's base, on Monday start a fresh round of questioning with the interrogation of Fausto Tonna, a former chief financial officer believed by magistrates to have camouflaged huge losses. Judicial sources have said a report on Parmalat's finances by outside auditors Price WaterhouseCoopers could be used in the questioning of Tonna, one of Tanzi's closest associates.
Tonna is one of six Parmalat executives, including founder Tanzi, and two outside auditors arrested over the collapse of the food group. No one has been charged in the case.
A ninth arrest warrant has been issued for the chairman of Parmalat's Venezuelan operations and head of offshore unit Bonlat.
Although still at large and said by his lawyer to be in Venezuala, Giovanni Bonici told business newspaper Il Sole 24 Ore that he was ready to return to face questioning.
"I confirm my willingness to return to Italy," he was quoted on Sunday as saying.
Later this week Tanzi's daughter Francesca, head of the family's Parmatour tourism group, is also due to be questioned.
Calisto Tanzi has told investigators he funnelled around 500 million euros from Parmalat, a listed company, into other family-owned groups including Parmatour.
Parmatour, deep in debt, is now in talks to sell operations including holiday villages and tour operators to Sviluppo Italia, a government development agency.
Tanzi has offered to turn over his shares in the group as well his personal assets - including yachts - but Parmalat's new management team on Saturday rejected the offer outright.
Parmalat's crisis exploded just over two weeks ago when its new managers revealed a four-billion euro hole in its accounts, forcing the company to seek protection from creditors.
The collapse of one of Italy's best known brand names has prompted a war of words between the government, the Bank of Italy and regulators over who was to blame.
Antonio D'Amato, the head of employer group Cofindustria, urged all to keep a level head.
"Whoever makes a mistake should pay, and pay dearly," he said in a letter quoted by Il Sole on Sunday. "But we must avoid a witch hunt."
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