Banca Carige SpA CEO Fabio Innocenzi received the board of directors' mandate to formalize an agreement to dispose of an unlikely-to-pay loans portfolio with U.S.-based Bain Capital Credit LP, the Italian lender said.

The portfolio of up to €400 million in gross book value will be disposed of as per the bank's exclusive talks with Bain and will help the bank reduce its nonperforming exposures below the ECB-mandated €4.6 billion threshold for end-2018.

The board also entrusted Innocenzi with the power to prepare an action plan to ensure compliance with overall capital requirement parameters, the bank said. The board will reconvene before the end of October to adopt resolutions on plans to plug the gap in the capital requirement, which the ECB has given the lender until the end of the year to finalize.

Meanwhile, the state-backed securitization of Banca Carige's NPLs is expected to be finalized by end-2018, the board said.

The bank also said Fitch Ratings' downgrade of Banca Carige's long- and short-term issuer default ratings on Oct. 10, in which the agency said the lender's failure was a "real possibility," was based on assessments made before changes in the bank's "governance and financial support from the main shareholder occurring since the last shareholders' meeting."