Mps-Monte dei Paschi di Siena eternally observed specially at Piazza Affari, with the third act of the Meloni government is nearing completion.
The lock up on the share still in the hands of the Treasury, still the majority shareholder of the Siena bank with 26.73% of the Siena capitalexpires next week: a factor that allows the ministry led by Giancarlo Giorgetti to disinvest further shareholdings held in the state-owned Monte.
We’re almost there, then: and the prospect of an institution even freer from the cumbersome presence of the State leads investors to refocus on banking risk horse.
To whom will the Sienese bank go? which continues to march briskly on the path of its privatizationlaunched with a first move at the end of 2023 by the Meloni government, then continued with the disinvestment of a second tranche at the beginning of this year?
The names mentioned in Piazza Affari are the usual ones: UniCredit (with CEO Andrea Orcel who has already said no several times), Banco BPM (idem), Bper . The latter seen as the white knight most likely to come forward, provided that the major shareholder Unipol gives his approval. It is precisely the latter that today, through the words of the president of the majority shareholder Unipol, Carlo Cimbri, said no again.
However, Intesa SanPaolo is not even considered, for obvious antitrust reasons.
Buy on Italian bank stocks: Bper jumps up to +5%, Mps almost +4%
In spite of everyone, investors believe in the risk of Italian banks: in the hours preceding the intraday highs, Mps soared to almost +4%.
Great excitement today on the stocks of the main Italian bankswith Bper remaining the best in the Ftse Mib index of Piazza Affari, despite moving away from the intraday highs, when it shot up to +5%.
Among the best in the Italian stock benchmark index, Banco BPM and UniCredit also stand out: the usual ones, in short, and the same ones on which investors continue to place their expectations of a banking risk in Italy:
often and willingly, not to say always, even in the absence of valid evidence to support such stock market fever.
As for UniCredit, the shares also rise in price the launch of the third tranche of the buyback plan valid for 2023 started today, Monday 24 June, after the announcement last Friday of Piazza Gae Aulenti, bank that has made shareholder satisfaction the number one objective to pursue.
Together with Intesa SanPaolo, UniCredit is also the bank that enjoys the trust of Barclays analystsas emerged from a report last week.
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Mediobanca Rumor: UniCredit’s temptation?
However, MPS is not the only bank that is being considered potential tempting prey for rivals.
An article from MF-Milano Finanza three days ago mentioned another heavyweight of Piazza Affari, whose name periodically resurfaces whenever we talk about candidate banks that are more or less likely to be absorbed by other credit institutions:
the reference is to Mediobanca, ergo Piazzetta Cuccia, an institution managed by the CEO Alberto Nagel, identified by MF “the great object of desire of banking risk maneuvers”:
we return to talking, specifically, about wedding between Mediobanca and UniCredit, therefore of the possibility that Mediobanca and UniCredit join forces: a hypothesis dear above all to the owner of Luxottica Leonardo Del Vecchio, died on 27 June 2022, two years ago in two days.
Hypothesis entertained quite a few times, strengthened in March 2021, when the market focused on the option of an M&A operation between the two groups, referring to the Orcel-Del Vecchio axis.
On the other hand, if it is true that, barring surprises, for UniCredit led by Andrea Orcel MPS is now part of the past – after the historic flop of the negotiations with the Mef, shareholder of Monte, miserably wrecked at the end of 2021 – , the Mediobanca hypothesis would not yet have been discarded, at least according to what has emerged again in the last period from market rumors.
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Other than MPS (but also BPM). With the Orcel-Del Vecchio axis, UniCredit could focus on Mediobanca. Complete with a takeover bid
Mediobanca also rises in today’s session of Piazza Affari, reporting an increase of approximately 1.9% on the Ftse Mib index.
Mps: will Meloni’s move trigger M&A with Bper? Rebus Cimbri (Unipol)
More than Piazzetta Cucciatoday the spotlight seems to be focused above all on Mps, Banco BPM and Bper.
Of the never waned dossier of Mps betrothed – to whom, however, no one has officially asked for her hand – spoke an article published today on The Economic Courier:
the most probable buyer bank of MPS was considered to be the Modena-based Bper, controlled – as well as the Popolare di Sondrio – by the Bolognese insurance company Unipol.
Possible that will the president of Unipol Carlo Cimbri give the OK to an M&A with Siena?
The option was dusted off by the article, which however also referred to the presence of a “industrial problem”, represented by that bancassurance agreement that binds and will bind for “the next three years” MPS to AXA.
Having said this, the newspaper also asked itself: after Bper and Popolare di Sondrio, “will this (Monte di Siena perhaps no longer state-owned) be the third target of Carlo Cimbri, great head of Unipol?”
The response of the person concerned
The person concerned responded today himself, or the number one of Unipol Carlo Cimbri:
“There is nothing in Bper’s immediate future – said the president of the Unipol group, according to what Ansa reported – Of course the Italian market is small, the candidates are few and the names that always go around are the same, but there is nothing with which I can enrich the debate.”
Cimbri recalled among other things what was decided by new CEO of Bper, Franco Papa, which has “an already outlined path ahead of it which concerns Bper as it is”. Therefore, in stand alone version.
It is also true that, according to what was reported by the other news agency Adnkronos, speaking at the ‘Il Giornale 50 years later’ event, Cimbri admitted that “the market is made up of many discontinuities and many opportunities, and you can never tell”. A no to Siena, therefore, from Carlo Cimbri, which however was not a flat no.
The great unknown, in any case, remains: Will MPS be the pivot around which a risky operation will give life to the third banking hub targeted by the Meloni government, or not?
For now we wait the third act of the Italian government, with the expiry of the lock up which obliges the Mef not to sell any further shares in its possession.
Certainly the Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, fresh from the great consensus received from Italians on the occasion of the European elections, she does not want to miss the opportunity to take credit for having managed to resolve the case of the former MPS hot potato, which has troubled several Italian governments before hers, starting by the government of Paolo Gentiloni, under which it took shape the precautionary recapitalization of the bank, which in 2017 officially became Monte di Stato, reaching the Conte government and the Draghi government.
On Monte dei Paschi di Siena, the Meloni government moved for the first time at the end of 2023, divesting an initial share of MPS’s share capital equal to 25%for a price per share of 2.92 euros and a total value of approximately 920 million.
With the second disinvestment at the end of March, the Mef it then sold a share of 12.5% of the capital, for a total value of approximately 650 million euros. For now, despite the buys, the only official thing is the same: no white knight has yet extended his hand to Monte dei Paschi di Siena.
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