How Italy’s banking M&A wave started crashing
View of the branches of the Italian bank Monte deo Paschi in Rome.
Nurphoto | Nurphoto | Getty Images
By late spring, Italy’s banking world was swept up in a storm of convoluted takeover bids and counterbids involving a swathe of the country’s major lenders. Three months later, only one high-profile bid is still standing.
It started with UniCredit‘s July decision to drop the “drag” of its nearly 15-billion-euro ($17.5-billion) bid for Banco BPM on the cusp of the proposal’s natural expiry, citing the opacity of conditions imposed by the Rome administration via its “golden power” screening rules. Then, Mediobanca‘s shareholders this month voted against the lender’s roughly 7-billion-euro offer for Banca Generali, thwarting what was widely seen as a defensive play against state-backed Monte dei Paschi‘s (MPS) interest in at least 35% of Mediobanca.
MPS has yet to give up.
Consolidation is one recourse for Europe’s cash-flush lenders to bulk up their scale and compete with Wall Street’s historically more lucrative banking giants. The M&A appetite has gripped Europe’s lenders at a time of markedly improved performance in the sector, with restructuring programs, the European defense boost, higher investment banking returns amid U.S. tariff-led volatility and an increase in broader M&A dealmaking in Southern Europe bolstering bottom lines.
In particular, the entangled web of offers from several of Italy’s key lenders — with pack leader Intesa Sanpaolo notably absent — builds on long-brewing momentum in what Fitch Ratings in April billed as a “more fragmented” banking system than in some other European nations.
“Increased scale could enable banks to better support large corporate investments, including those linked to European and Italian defence sector initiatives,” the agency said at the time.
Italy’s economy has been fertile ground for banking growth of late. It has “outperformed most of its Eurozone peers in recent years, although momentum may ease in coming years as an investment boom driven by [Next Generation EU] funds and construction spending fades away,” Deutsche Bank analysts said in an August report, stressing the country will need to pivot toward a more consumption-driven economy — facing the incoming pressures of higher U.S. tariffs.
The International Monetary Fund forecasts Italy — where it pronounced “further improvement in banking sector soundness” in a July report — will notch 0.5% economic growth this year, outpacing Germany’s projected 0.1% expansion over the same period.
M&A run still to go
While the pace of Italy’s consolidation attempts has simmered, analysts say we’re far from a denouement.
“Of late we have seen Banca BPER successful taking over Banca Sondrio, and Illimity Bank acquired by Banca Ifis. Meanwhile Monte dei Paschi is resolutely marching on Mediobanca, and Banco BPM’s independence might be short-lived, with Credit Agricole launching towards a 20% stake,” said Filippo Maria Alloatti, head of financials for credit at Federated Hermes Limited. “A merger between Credit Agricole Italy and Banco BPM seems likely in the medium-term.”
He added that the odds of MPS prevailing in its offer for Mediobanca are now higher — a view echoed by William Cain, head of M&A Research EMEA at Mergermarket, who told CNBC that “the vote on Banca Generali was effectively a referendum on Mediobanca’s standalone strategy and shareholders have now made their views clear on that point.”
He went on to say that, “There is an increasing chance BMPS will secure the 35% of Mediobanca’s share [that] capital management has previously said it would be happy with – and perhaps a lot more.”
Italy’s banks have also set sights beyond the country’s borders. UniCredit’s first play last year was to progressively accrue a synthetic stake of up to roughly 28% in German lender Commerzbank. The Italian bank has since converted this into a 26% equity shareholding in Commerzbank and has secured the European Central Bank’s blessing to hold up to 29.9% — stirring speculation over plans for a potential takeover, which Commerzbank and the Berlin administration have resisted.
The same UniCredit on Thursday said it has raised its holding in Greece’s Alpha Bank to nearly 26%, after engaging financial instruments for an additional 5% stake.
“What’s happening is not just an Italian story – Italy has become an important case study for the EU to test how M&A can evolve in the European banking sector,” Stefano Caselli, dean of the SDA Bocconi School of Management, told CNBC by email.
The consolidation fever has indeed spread beyond Italy. In July, Spain’s Banco Santander said it was buying British high street bank TSB for £2.65 billion from Sabadell. The Catalonian lender has itself been fighting off the advances of Spanish peer BBVA,…