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By Pamela Barbaglia and Valentina Za
LONDON/MILAN, Feb 25 (Reuters) - Investment banks including
Citigroup Inc, Credit Suisse and Nomura Holdings
Inc have curbed trips to Italy on fears that the
coronavirus outbreak across the north of the country could
quickly spread across Europe, four sources told Reuters.
Citi has told staff heading to Italy's financial capital
Milan or other northern cities to postpone their trips or seek
approval from top management if they are working on sensitive
deals, the sources said, speaking on condition of anonymity as
banking policies are confidential.
Credit Suisse has also informed bankers looking to travel to
and from Northern Italy including airports in Milan and Bologna
that they will require extra permissions, two of the sources
said.
Nomura has instead taken a more rigorous approach putting
all countries affected by coronavirus deaths on a blacklist,
including Italy and France, and banning staff from travelling
there, they said.
The Japanese bank has also told employees working locally in
Milan and Paris that they cannot book business trips to visit
clients abroad, one of the sources said.
"They are all grounded," this source said referring to
Nomura's bankers.
Citi, Credit Suisse and Nomura declined to comment.
The curbs come as coronavirus infections have soared across
northern Italy over the past few days, causing seven deaths and
more than 200 cases.
It is the first time banks have restricted trips within
Europe as most financial institutions have so far only applied
travel bans to mainland China, imposing a 14-day quarantine to
those who had recently returned.
Most bankers in London who want to see clients in Italy fear
they will have to go through the same quarantine policies when
flying back to London, the sources said.
"Managers have hinted at a shorter quarantine of one week
rather than the standard fortnight but it is not clear yet,"
said a London-based banker whose employer had warned staff
against booking trips to Italy.
Milan-based Mediobanca and UniCredit
have also banned all non-essential trips, both inside and
outside Italy, two sources said.
In a statement on Monday UniCredit said it has introduced "a
ban on non-essential domestic and international travel" as a
precautionary measure.
It also told staff living near the worst affected towns in
northern Italy to work from home.
Other banks including Barclays and Morgan Stanley
have told their Milan staff to avoid travelling to their
respective offices in the heart of Milan, two other sources
said.
Credit Suisse has also encouraged local bankers to work from
home and arrange calls with clients rather than seeing them
face-to-face, they said.
Barclays and Credit Suisse declined to comment while
Mediobanca and Morgan Stanley were not immediately available.
More than 200 people in Italy have come down with the virus
since Friday, latest data showed, the vast majority of them in
the wealthy northern regions of Lombardy and Veneto.
Italian authorities have sealed off the worst-affected towns
and banned public gatherings across a wide area, halting the
carnival in Venice and football matches in Milan.
International airlines are still flying passengers in and
out of Italy but some countries including Tunisia have raised
the prospect of putting Italians into quarantine after they
land.
The surge of coronavirus cases outside mainland China
triggered sharp falls in global markets on Monday.
European equities markets suffered their biggest slump since
mid-2016, gold soared to a seven-year high and oil tumbled 4%.
(Reporting by Pamela Barbaglia in London and Valentina Za in
Milan; Additional reporting by Stephen Jewkes and Clara Denina;
Editing by Lisa Shumaker)
