Do you have any numbers to back this up? I have no clue how many works of art are owned by the Vatican. Even if they own 1,000 pieces of art that can be sold at an average price of $25 million each, they’ve only equaled Citi’s single-year profit.
I honestly have no clue how many objects d’art the Vatican owns, but unless I see some cites, I have a really, really hard time thinking its fetching price is in the range of 11 figures, and even then, we haven’t even considered Citibank going beyond its profits and trying to raise any cash in the same manner that we’re talking about the Vatican selling all its assets. If we want to compare assets, the Vatican then has to raise 13 figures. Thirteen!!! Unless someone can show me some numbers, I have a hard time thinking that Citibank couldn’t purchase the Vatican and everything it owns and not flinch a bit.
Ok, I couldn’t help myself and I did some googling. The Vatican’s former finance minister claims that Vatican assets not used for Church purposes is $5 billion.A Georgetown University scholar says that an audit of the Vatican’s bank showed deposits of $40 billion. Whatever WAG value you want to assign to priceless real estate, there is just no way that the Vatican can ever attain the wealth of Citibank. Also, Citibank is growing hugely richer by the year, and the Vatican isn’t.
If the Vatican tried to truly “liquidate all assets” I think Citigroup is probably the GQ answer. A flood of “Priceless” Treasures on the market would affect prices as would Roman Real Estate.
I would imagine that the Vatican could probably raise more money in the Short term by mortgage and borrowing and emergency appeals to the (Catholic) World than simply mass liquidating. The Banks would only be interested in making sure that that they will get a return on the money they put out. I believe in the situation as laid out here Goldman or the other M&A Banks would need to generate cash for the Vatican and would be a better source of short/intermediate cash than a liquidation.
I doubt it would be even close to what a premium stock offering by the CitiCorp would generate
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Were going to assume that the shareholders/church members are willing to let each of their reps spend every last penny to win the auction.**
The real problem is, Chick tracts aside, is that the Pope doesn’t really “control” much of the Church’s wealth. A good way to look at it from a secular source
It’s like McDonald’s," says Anson Shupe, a sociologist at Indiana-Purdue University in Fort Wayne who studies finances and abuse within churches. “There is no one Catholic church in the United States. They are all separate corporate entities – a bunch of franchises.”
Or from a Catholic Source
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While the universal church’s hierarchical structure can mean direct – and sometimes swift – Vatican intervention in pastoral and dogmatic affairs, budget problems are left to the local church to resolve. The Vatican does not assume responsibility for diocesan financing in nonmissionary countries, although it may be called upon to approve major sales of church properties. Even the budget for the Diocese of Rome – the pope’s own diocese – is managed independently of the Vatican.*
The problem for the Vatican in this situation is that Pope would not equal the CEO/CFO of Citi in controlling the budget and finances of his “Company” he doesn’t have shareholders and a BoD as much as he has a bunch of franchisees.