The third Italian banking group Banco BPM, coveted by its rival UniCredit, intends to stay “autonomous” to ensure its growth, its CEO Giuseppe Castagna declared Wednesday in a letter to employees. “This is the right path to follow to grow on our own and not become the object of operations that do not take into account the value expressed by our bank”he writes in this missive. The board of directors of BPM had judged on Tuesday insufficient the public share exchange offer (OPE) valuing it at 10.1 billion euros, launched Monday by UniCredit, thus inflicting a new setback on its boss Andrea Orcel after his setbacks in Germany.
“We are a large, autonomous Italian bank, with a strong vocation of proximity to the territories and SMEs, the backbone of our country” et “we must continue in this direction”argues Giuseppe Castagna. The cost synergies estimated by UniCredit, i.e. 900 million euros per year, “would involve a reduction in staff of more than 6,000 colleagues”according to the calculations of the CEO of BPM who judges these savings “very worrying”. This offer also risks “to limit the strategic autonomy of management, including regarding the terms” of the public purchase offer (OPA) launched by BPM for the Italian asset management group Anima, fears Giuseppe Castagna.
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The government of Giorgia Meloni has also warmly welcomed UniCredit’s offer because it risks thwarting its plan to create a third banking center in Italy formed by Banco BPM and Monte dei Paschi di Siena (MPS). The Minister of the Economy Giancarlo Giorgetti even raised the hypothesis that Rome could block the operation by resorting to «golden power»which gives it special powers in sectors considered strategic for the country.
The OPE on Banco BPM comes two months after the surprise announcement by UniCredit of the acquisition of 9% of Commerzbank, then its increase to 21% of the capital, fueling speculation about a complete takeover of its German rival. But this project also encountered opposition from the German government as well as an outcry from unions in the banking sector. “The possibility of an agreement with Commerzbank has reduced, but it is not close to zero”Andrea Orcel commented to the German press on Monday.
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