Unicredit’s offensive to buy its Italian rival BPM (Banco Popolare di Milano) has at least encountered a halt along the way. The company, after a meeting of its board of directors, responded with a first refusal to the offer of 10 billion euros. “They do not in any way reflect profitability or potential ” In this way, the company explained that, although “we have taken note of the communication”, it is surprised that “in no case was this offer previously agreed with the bank”.
According to the entity, the board unanimously considered that the offer “is based on completely unusual conditions for transactions of this type” and it is for this reason that they categorically reject the deal. After learning the news, the company’s shares fell by 0.26%, while those of Unicredit rose by 0.17%. The bank added that the gross cost synergies estimated by UniCredit at 900 million, they represent “more than a third of the cost base of the BPM” and for this reason, “they give rise to strong concerns about the foreseeable repercussions on employment and social standards.
The firm led by Andrea Orcel I could keep raising the stakes, this rejection is only the first “round,” so the eventual purchase is not complete. The offer is not binding and must in fact be confirmed within 20 days by a document submitted to the Italian market regulator.
In any case, from now on, the legislation indicates that BPM will not be able to carry out any operation or take any measure that could cause the operation to fail without having first convened a general meeting of shareholders to give the green light to any movement. In this sense, this complicates the offensive of this entity aimed at taking over the Anima fund manager. BOM launched on November 7 a public purchase offer of 1.6 billion by the manager and, now, this would have a heavy burden in a possible bid.
This Monday, Unicredit launched an offer of 10,000 million euros to take over Italy’s third largest bank. This movement completely surprised the markets which were still waiting for the complicated operation of Commerzbank to develop in Germany. This turn of events seems to respond to a new direction in the expansion policy of the Italian giant, which it had already marked for some time with operations such as the repurchase of part of Alphabank.
Coming back to the Italian operation, the offer has already been rejected values BPM at around 6.66 euros per share. If this comes to fruition, we would be talking about the third largest bank in the entire Eurozone in terms of market capitalization. In terms of assets, it would still remain second in the country, behind Intesa-San Paolo. In total, this would add almost 19 million customers. In any case, it was a very tight premium of only 0.5% on the value of the securities on the stock market, a very tight operation, and this is precisely what is currently causing opposition.
“This operation was communicated but not agreed with the Italian government”
Not only have there been doubts on the part of the company itself, but in the highest echelons of Italian politics there is a climate of perplexity due to Andrea Orcel’s surprising decision. “This operation was communicated but not agreed with the Italian government”, Giancarlo Giorgetti, Minister of Economy, commented this Monday. “The government will make its own assessments in this regard and will carefully evaluate the operation when Unicredit sends its proposal.”
Before the board meeting in Milan, the director of the entity, Mauro Paoloni, told the press: UniCredit’s takeover offer was “hostile”. They are clearly opposed to a union between the two parties.
