Intesa Sanpaolo announced Monday that it was making a bid of close to €31 billion for Monte dei Paschi di Siena (MPS) to form the eurozone's second-largest bank amid merger ferment in the Italian finance sector.
    At the weekend another Italian lender, Banco BPM, said it would invite MPS, which acquired merchant bank Mediobanca last year, to discuss a "merger of equals".
    BPM had recently been the target of a takeover bid by UniCredit, Italy's second-largest bank, although the operation fell through following the Italian government's controversial use of golden powers.
    Intesa said Monday that it was offering 16 of its shares for every 10 MPS shares as well as €1.0 in cash for every MPS share tendered, with a 12.5% premium with respect to Friday's closing price, for a total overall outlay of €30.6 billion.
    Italy's biggest bank said the merged group would have 3,000 branches and a capitalisation of €126 billion, making it the eurozone's second biggest lender after Spain's Santander.
    Intesa added that it has reached an agreement with insurance group Unipol, the biggest shareholder in another bank, BPER Banca, to sell a "banking legal entity comprising the MPS brand" and around 635 MPS branches in order to avoid problems with the Antitrust authorities.
    It said that its board has approved the acquisition of a 3.01% stake in Italian insurance giant Generali as part of its bid for MPS.
    The takeover of Mediobanca had made MPS, which was re-privatised in 2023-2024 following a 2017 State bailout, although the Treasury still has a stake of close to 5% in it, the biggest shareholder of Generali.
    UniCredit also has a major stake in Generali.
   

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED © Copyright ANSA