Banks, it’s Fever from Risiko. All open dossiers

The seismic swarm that is affecting the Italian banking system does not stop. In the end there will be no rubble, but certainly a completely new and different scenario for the world of national credit. The first shock given it unicredit at the end of 2024, with a blitz attempted abroad.

Commerzbank, one of the big names in Germany, ended up in the sights of the bank led by Andrea Orcel. Over time Unicredit has risen to a potential participation of approximately 28% of Commerzbank, between a 9.5% share held directly and another 18.5% through derivative tools. The operation triggered the hard opposition of the management of Commerzbank, the powerful German unions and the Berlin government, and At the moment it is also on standby pending the next political elections in Germany. Meanwhile, Unicredit has moved its pawns, has put hay in the farmhouse ‘engaged’ about 6 billion euros and in the coming months it will be able to return to the office starting from a position of strength.

In the meantime, Orcel can be dedicated to the other open front: OPS of over 10 billion euros for BAN BPM, A project that would punctuate Unicredit’s strength in northern Italy and would create the third European group by capitalization. The offer for the ‘old’ popular in Milan has also agitated the waters of politics, in this case Italian. Banco Bpm, in fact, had moved to Siena, purchasing 5% of Mps during the last tranche sold by the MEF, a participation that would reach 9% if you consider the package in the hands of Anima Holding, on which an opa hangs (from 1.6 billion) launched by the bank led by Giuseppe Castagna.

In this case, the project was to finally give a destiny to the Monte dei Paschi di Siena by giving birth to the third credit champion in Italy behind Intesa Sanpaolo and Unicredit. A project clearly stopped by the Unicredit Opes. Alongside Banco Bpm, two maximum weights of entrepreneurship and the finance of the country had moved, the dolphin of the old family and the Caltagirone galaxy, present in force both in Mediobanca and in Generali.

The real surprise move came precisely from the ‘Cinderella’ among the main Italian banks, that is, from Mps, restored and again profitable thanks to the care of Luigi Lovaglio. The oldest institute in the world has launched an APS of 13.3 billion euros on Mediobanca, A temple considered (not wrongly) the temple of Italian finance. The offer, as in these cases, was considered “not agreed” and “hostile”, and therefore sent back to the sender. The looks for the cascade repercussions of this last operation is inevitable, given that Mediobanca is also the first shareholder with about 13% of Generali, who has 176 billion of government bonds in his belly. Just the fear of the future management of the saving of Italians, is the basis of the ‘alarm’ which was triggered for Generali’s operation to give life to a joint venture with the French of Natixis, who would give life to a global operator from 1,900 billions of euros of gestural masses.

The last twist came from Bper, Already a recent protagonist of the consolidation of the sector after the purchases of Carige, of the branches of Unipol Banca and those ‘in redundancies’ deriving from the fusion of Sanpaolo-Ubi. Well, the Modenese Institute launched an APS of 4.3 billion euros on the Popolare di Sondrio. In this case, the operation, always “not agreed” and “hostile” for those who have suffered it, could be facilitated by the fact that the first shareholder of both institutions is Unipol, which owns 24.6% of Bper and the 20% of Banca Popolare di Sondrio.

Finally, in the background, an operation that in this phase could be defined as minor but in different periods would have catalyzed the attention of the financial chronicles: l’Opas for a consideration of almost 300 million euros. Those who seem to remain at the window is the first banking group of the country, Intesa Sanpaolo.

The why CEO himself explained it, Carlo Messina: “We have no intention of participating in operations of mergers and acquisitions in Italy”, apart from the fact that “even on the antitrust front we are in such a position that it would be difficult to do operations that they would create value “. And then “we want to be far from the confusion on the market”, a chaos such that “I myself struggle to put together all the pieces,” Messina said on the occasion of the press conference for the presentation of the 2024 budget of the Ca ‘ De Sass. “We repeatedly stressed that the banks should have revisited their equity story when the interest rates would begin to go down, with the merger and acquisition operations (M&A) as possible away”, wrote Intermonte’s experts in unsuspected times. Here, just what seems to be happening now.