The fight for Banco BPM heats up
Europe has long been ripe for bank consolidation. The first signs of the potential M&A wave in the sector have arrived this year, first over Germany’s Commerzbank, and now for the Italian lender Banco BPM.
On Friday, France’s Crédit Agricole — which is already Banco BPM’s biggest shareholder — further boosted its stake in the lender.
The French bank entered into financial contracts that will lift its holding from 9.9 per cent to 15.1 per cent. And that’s just the latest step. Crédit Agricole’s plan is to ultimately get approval from regulators to own up to 19.99 per cent.
This sounds familiar because a similar stake-building strategy using derivatives played out a couple of months ago between UniCredit and Germany’s Commerzbank.
UniCredit and its chief executive Andrea Orcel have been on the prowl to build a European banking champion. But like the Commerzbank situation, Banco BPM also rejected the Italian bank’s €10.1bn takeover bid in late November.
Banco BPM hasn’t just been sitting around, either. It took a 5 per cent stake in Monte dei Paschi di Siena (MPS) a few weeks ago.
The new stake in MPS spurred Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s government to hope that the smaller players in the country’s banking sector might team up to compete with UniCredit and Intesa Sanpaolo, the country’s largest lender.
While Crédit Agricole’s bigger stake in BPM Banco means that the French bank now might be a bigger hurdle between UniCredit and a takeover, UniCredit says it doesn’t change anything.
“We were always prepared to negotiate with [Crédit Agricole], as this would have been necessary whatever the scale of their shareholding,” UniCredit said in response to the Crédit Agricole news.
Orcel and Crédit Agricole chief executive Philippe Brassac had been scheduled to meet to discuss the Banco BPM takeover bid, according to one person with knowledge of the talks.
But whatever the outcome of the approach, the country’s takeover rules put Banco BPM in limbo. Under the so-called passivity rule, the bank can’t buy further stakes in MPS, or bump up its offer for the asset manager Anima, which it has been pursuing.
Can Banco BPM successfully fend off the overtures?