Banco Bpm makes an axis with Unicredit and withdraws from the game for Mps

by time news

In a meeting with the analysts that Formiche.net is able to report, the CEO of Banco Bpm, Castagna, rejects the idea of ​​a block acquisition of Siena, possibly evaluating only the stew hypothesis. This is the second blow in a few days to the plans of the Mef to get out of Mps

It is not easy to find a partner for the oldest bank of Italy. The long-awaited Italian bank reorganization, whose protagonists, as recounted on several occasions by Formiche.net are the same Rocca Salimbeni, Unicredit, Carige, Banco-Bpm, are experiencing a stalemate that risks turning into a missed opportunity. In fact, in exactly six months, the tax credits put in place by the government of Mario Draghi to urge the institutions to release their reservations and give a push to possible M&A transactions. Incentives, the so-called Dta, which for the sole acquisition of Mps by Unicredit are worth approximately 2.2 billion, provided that the aggregation is approved by the board (just the go-ahead of the board is enough) by 31 December.

But for now, the line of the big banks seems to be quite clear: the wedding with Siena with the consequent disengagement of the shareholder Tesoro (64%), which in 2020 closed with a loss of 1.6 billion, are not attractive. Unless individual assets are sold, giving life to the famous stew. He thinks so Andrea Orcel, CEO of Unicredit who, as reported by Messenger, in a meeting with the leaders of the Mef, in particular the dg Alessandro Rivera, has in fact closed the door to an acquisition of all Mps.

And the number one of Banco Bpm is convinced of it, as this newspaper is able to reveal, Giuseppe Castagna. In recent days the manager would have held one conference call with Mediobanca analysts of which Formiche.net is aware, expressing the will to reject the merger with Siena. Banco Bpm, this is the substance of the passage dedicated to Siena, if it were interested in the Tuscan bank it would therefore be interested only and exclusively for some of its parts and certainly not for the entire institution, nor for the entire controlling stake in the belly of the Mef.

Also because, Castagna pointed out, at this moment Banco Bpm could not support such an effort, with all the consequences that it would entail. The Neapolitan manager was, if possible, even clearer when answering another question he clarified that he did not expect any mergers for the bank by this summer, also because before any move it is necessary to carefully evaluate costs and benefits.

All this greatly complicates the game for Monte dei Paschi. The Italian State, whose plans provide for the sale of the entire 64% stake, is an obliged seller since it has agreed with Europe to exit the capital and to put the institution back on the market within the first half of 2022. These are EU antitrust agreements made in 2017 when Siena was saved with a public check worth 5.4 billion euros.

The bank, however, is not an easy morsel, since despite having been cleaned of past non-performing loans it needs a capital increase of around 2.5 billion and for this reason the government has launched a tax credit which – in the event of a merger with the Milanese bank – worth 2.2 billion. At this point, the stew operation could really take shape, with a division of MPS into two or three parts, to be assigned to Unicredit, to the public bank Mcc ​​(which absorbed Popolare di Bari) to make it grow in the South. And, perhaps , at Banco Bpm. We will see.

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