Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free
Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.
Mediobanca has launched a €6.3bn takeover offer for Italian rival Banca Generali, as efforts to consolidate the country’s banking industry intensify.
Milan-based Mediobanca said on Monday that a combination of the two lenders would create a “European market leader”.
The move comes as Mediobanca seeks to fend off a hostile bid from smaller rival Monte dei Paschi di Siena, and lenders seek greater scale to compete in Italy and across Europe.
Mediobanca is the biggest shareholder in Assicurazioni Generali, Banca Generali’s parent company. To fund its proposed takeover of Banca Generali, Mediobanca said it would sell its stake in Assicurazioni Generali, Italy’s largest insurer.
Mediobanca’s 13 per cent stake in the insurer is currently worth about €6.5bn.
If the deal goes through, half of the Mediobanca stake would go back to Generali — which holds a stake just over 50 per cent in Banca Generali — while the rest would go to Banca Generali’s other investors.
A takeover would expand Mediobanca’s wealth management business and potentially counter criticism from shareholders that it has become too reliant on its stake in Generali for profits.
Setting out the reasons for the deal on Monday, Mediobanca said combining the lenders would generate about €300mn in synergies. Chief executive Alberto Nagel said the transaction would create “a solid, profitable group which excels in creating value for all its stakeholders”.
Mediobanca’s offer represents an 11.4 per cent premium to Banca Generali’s closing share price on Friday.
Shares in Banca Generali jumped 8 per cent on Monday.
With Mediobanca facing a bid from MPS, Italian law stipulates that shareholders in the bank need to approve its bid for Banca Generali on June 16.
Mediobanca’s stake in Generali has proved troublesome for Nagel.
Last week, Mediobanca scored a victory in its long-running battle with tycoon Francesco Gaetano Caltagirone, an investor in both the bank and Generali, when the insurer’s shareholders backed its proposed list of board directors.
In a sign of the complex crossholdings in Italian banking, Caltagirone’s rival set of board directors was supported by Delfin, the holding company for the billionaire Del Vecchio family that is Mediobanca’s single largest shareholder.
