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☆ UniCredit’s M&A hunt has more glitter than gold
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-03 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

The resulting improved valuations should in theory put the veteran dealmaker in a strong position to pounce on a rival. As Orcel pushed up earnings, UniCredit shares have recovered and their ratio with BPM is now back to where it was before the conflict. Still, the two lenders have diverged operationally: after a better-than-expected quarter UniCredit is now forecasting net earnings of over 6.5 billion euros in 2023, almost double the 3.9 billion euros it delivered in 2021. At 3 euros, its projected earnings per share this year are more than four times the 0.7 euros seen in 2021, Refinitiv data shows. (By Lisa Jucca)(Corrects to change “5.5 billion euros” to “over 6.5 billion euros” in paragraph three.)

☆ Italy's FSI invests up to $110 million in debit card operator BANCOMAT
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-26 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

MILAN, April 26 (Reuters) - Italian investment fund FSI has agreed to invest up to 100 million euros ($110 million) in debit card operator BANCOMAT to support its expansion in Europe. Under a new business plan drawn up by the company, its main shareholders and FSI, BANCOMAT will complete targeted acquisitions and build a new platform to offer clients a wider range of services and products. In early 2022, it invested in the payments business of cooperative banking group BCC ICCREA, acquiring a 60% stake in electronic payment company BCC Pay. The payments sector has been swept up in a wave of mergers and acquisitions as it seeks the financial muscle to keep up with technological advances while contending with the threat from new entrants. The accord comes after FSI last year signed a preliminary deal for an investment in BANCOMAT.

☆ Banco BPM to work on revising business plan, improve targets
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-20 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: 1 min

MILAN, April 20 (Reuters) - Banco BPM (BAMI.MI) will work on updating its strategic plan in the coming months and is confident it can improve its financial goals, Chief Executive Giuseppe Castagna said as shareholders prepare to hand him another mandate. Castagna, who has led Banco BPM since the 2017 merger that created Italy's third-largest bank, is set to be reappointed as shareholders vote on Thursday to name a new board. "One of our top priorities for the coming months will be to update our business plan on a stand-alone basis which, I'm sure, will be able to aim to improve the recently announced targets," Castagna told shareholders. Reporting by Andrea Mandala; writing by Valentina Za Editing by Keith WeirOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ Italian investor in UniCredit, Banco BPM sees 'strategic value' in deal
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-19 | by ( Valentina Za | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

Italy's No.2 bank UniCredit was preparing an offer for number three Banco BPM in 2022, before the Ukraine conflict forced CEO Andrea Orcel to focus on its Russia exposure. Orcel had looked to move on Banco BPM soon after becoming UniCredit CEO two years ago, but instead entered talks with the government over a possible Monte dei Paschi (BMPS.MI) acquisition that eventually fell through. Fondazione CRT holds 1.9% of UniCredit and 1.8% of Banco BPM. Twenty years later that gap is still there so the strategic value of the deal remains". Born from the merger of BPM with Verona-based Banco Popolare, Banco BPM controls 12% of Lombardy's banking market, twice UniCredit's market share.

MILAN, March 25 (Reuters) - Italy's Treasury said it would confirm Luigi Lovaglio as chief executive of Monte dei Paschi di Siena , keeping the veteran banker in charge of the bank as turmoil shakes the industry. Monte dei Paschi (MPS) is due to appoint a new board of directors on April 20 and the Treasury, which owns 64% of MPS following a 2017 bailout, on Saturday said it had filed its slate of nominees for the board. He arrived at MPS just over a year ago, when the Treasury pushed out his predecessor. A merger also remains the preferred option of banking supervisors to buttress MPS' fragile profitability, a second source said. A failed attempt to sell MPS to UniCredit has forced Italy to seek more time from the EU to cut its stake.

Monte dei Paschi (MPS), which raised capital last year, needs to merge with a stronger rival to cement its turnaround. Banco BPM CEO Giuseppe Castagna, who faces pressure from shareholders to reject an MPS deal, has repeatedly said the Tuscan bank is too large for Banco BPM to integrate. A Banco BPM spokesperson said nothing had changed in this respect. HURDLESA Banco BPM and MPS tie-up would pose major hurdles, another three sources said separately. Banco BPM investors are also concerned about an expansion into regions of the country where economic growth is much weaker compared with the bank's wealthy home base in the north, one of the sources said.

☆ Italian private equity fund FSI fund raised Anima stake to 9%
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-21 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

MILAN, Feb 21 (Reuters) - Italian private equity fund Fondo Strategico Italiano (FSI) held 9% of Anima Holding as of Feb. 17, a regulatory filing showed on Tuesday, after beefing up an initial holding of just over 7% it built last week. Offering a premium of just 7.5% over the latest closing price, FSI reached only slightly more than its minimum target in the reverse ABB transaction. The filing showed FSI had then bought a further 1.7% stake on the market. Led by former Merrill Lynch banker Maurizio Tamagnini, FSI has not disclosed the reasons behind its investment in Anima. ($1 = 0.9376 euros)Reporting by Valentina Za, editing by Alvise Armellini and Keith WeirOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ Italian fund buys stake in asset manager Anima in play on bank M&A
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-15 | by ( Valentina Za | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

The 109 million euro ($116 million) stakebuilding strengthens the grip of Italian investors on a company in which France's Amundi (AMUN.PA) - Europe's biggest asset manager - has also taken a stake. Amundi has a strong presence in Italy having spent 3.6 billion euros in 2017 to buy peer Pioneer from UniCredit (CRDI.MI). Formerly backed by the state and focused on promoting national champions, private equity fund Fondo Strategico Italiano (FSI) targeted a stake of up to 9%. Amundi acquired its Anima stake a month after Amundi's owner, French bank Credit Agricole (CAGR.PA), bought 9.2% of Banco BPM, becoming its single largest investor. Of Anima's 177 billion euros of assets under management, some 100 billion euros are invested in Italian government bonds.

☆ Financial investor buying up to 9% of Italian asset manager Anima
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-14 | by ( Valentina Za | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

An investor document seen by Reuters showed Mediobanca, which did not name the investor, was buying Anima shares through an accelerated reverse bookbuilding at 4.35 euros a share. At the top of the targeted range, the investment would total 135.7 million euros ($145.7 million) while the minimum stake would cost the buyer 105.7 million euros, Reuters calculations showed. The investor is Italian and is neither a bank nor an insurance firm, two people with knowledge of the matter told Reuters. Anima is Italy's biggest independent asset manager and has often been seen as a potential takeover target. Last year, French asset manager Amundi (AMUN.PA) emerged as the third-biggest investor in Anima with a 5.2% stake.

☆ Saipem shares drop, group says cannot explain why
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-13 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

MILAN, Feb 13 (Reuters) - Saipem (SPMI.MI) does not have any information explaining Monday's share movements, a spokesman for the Italian energy contractor said, after the stock closed down 5.7%. More than 10% of the share capital of the group was traded on the Milan stock exchange, according to Refinitiv data. In July a pool of lender bought Saipem's shares worth almost 600 million euros after a cash call fell short of the 2 billion euro target. BNP Paribas, Citigroup, Deutsche Bank, HSBC, Intesa Sanpaolo and UniCredit were the joint global coordinators of the Saipem issue. Reporting by Francesca Landini and Giancarlo Navach, editing by Gianluca Semeraro and Gavin JonesOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

However, two sources briefed on the matter told Reuters that the cap did not apply to MPS, based on the Treasury's interpretation of the rule. The salary cap compares with Lovaglio's current pay of 466,000 euros a year with no variable compensation, which is already well below peers. The MPS rescue deal Italy agreed in 2017 with European Union authorities cost taxpayers 5.4 billion euros. In November he worked with Rome to pull off a make-or-break 2.5 billion euro new share issue that saw Italy pump another 1.6 billion euros into MPS. MPS already enforces EU-mandated caps to its top executives' pay, which cannot total more than 10 times the average employee salary.

☆ Banco BPM wants to squeeze more long-term value from retailers' payment business
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-04 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

MILAN, Feb 4 (Reuters) - Italy's third-largest bank Banco BPM (BAMI.MI) is keen to generate greater value longer-term from its retailers' payment business as it explores strategic options for the unit, its chief executive said on Saturday. Speaking to reporters on the sidelines of the Assiom-Forex conference in Milan, Chief Executive Giuseppe Castagna said Banco BPM was considering ways to boost profitability at its business that provides payment services to shopkeepers. "What we certainly won't do is be selling future P&L (profit and loss) inflows to get cash upfront," Castagna said. "Like with our other businesses, we're looking for ... a model that creates more value for the bank," Castagna said without elaborating. Banco BPM recently agreed to sell a majority stake in its non-life insurance business to Credit Agricole (CAGR.PA), its single biggest investor with whom it already partnered in consumer credit.

☆ UniCredit CEO says 'we'll see' when asked about Monte dei Paschi -CNBC
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-18 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

Monte dei Paschi is 64% owned by the Italian state, which needs to eventually cut its stake to meet re-privatisation commitments given to the European Union at the time of the bailout. "I think Monte dei Paschi has taken a different direction in their strategy. And they've raised their capital, they're rationalising the bank, they're restructuring the bank," Orcel said in an interview with CNBC. So they need to do that, and then we'll see," he said when asked about a Reuters report that UniCredit was still seen as a potential buyer for Monte dei Paschi, alongside Banco BPM (BAMI.MI). Monte dei Paschi raised 2.5 billion euros in capital in December, despite rocky markets, to finance thousands of voluntary staff exits and cut costs.

By acquiring MPS, UniCredit could have bridged in part the gap with domestic champion Intesa Sanpaolo (ISP.MI), which overtook it as Italy's top lender in 2020 by buying smaller peer UBI. Such a deal would have further widened the distance between the top two banks and Banco BPM (BAMI.MI), which ranks third with roughly one-fifth of their assets. Sources with knowledge of the matter have told Reuters Banco BPM together with UniCredit remain potential buyers for MPS. On Thursday, Banco BPM CEO Giuseppe Castagna was quoted as saying MPS was "too big a mouthful" for his bank to swallow. Bankers say an MPS deal could help Banco BPM loosen the grip of Credit Agricole (CAGR.PA), the French bank which this year became the single biggest investor in Banco BPM.

☆ Italy's goal is several big banking groups as it works to exit MPS - PM
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-29 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

MILAN, Dec 29 (Reuters) - Italy will work to exit the capital of bailed-out lender Monte dei Paschi di Siena (BMPS.MI) with a view to creating a banking landscape with several large groups, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said on Thursday. Meloni said Monte dei Paschi had been "very badly handled" by previous governments leading to taxpayers spending billions of euros to prop up the Tuscan lender, whose restructuring however "appears rather solid." Italy owns 64% of Monte dei Paschi following a 2017 bailout that cost taxpayers 5.4 billion euros. Rome pumped another 1.6 billion euros into the bank as part of a 2.5 billion euro recapitalisation completed in November. In an interview on Thursday Banco BPM CEO Giuseppe Castagna said Monte dei Paschi was "too big a mouthful" for his bank to swallow.

☆ Enel signs state-backed credit line worth 12 bln euros
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-23 | by ( Francesca Landini | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

MILAN, Dec 23 (Reuters) - Enel (ENEI.MI) and a pool of banks signed a 12 billion euro ($12.74 billion) credit facility to fund margin calls linked to the group's derivative trades, Italy's biggest utility said. The financing is 70% guaranteed by the Italian export credit agency SACE and has a term of about 18 months, Enel said on Friday. As anticipated by Reuters, the credit line is part of the Italian government's efforts to shield the country's utilities against volatility on energy markets. Other Italian utilities are expected to apply for the SACE guarantee scheme. Italy's second-biggest utility A2A (A2.MI) told Reuters on Tuesday it would tap the credit facility backed by the credit export agency in January.

☆ French bank Credit Agricole strikes bancassurance deal with Italy's Banco BPM
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-23 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: 1 min

PARIS, Dec 23 (Reuters) - French bank Credit Agricole (CAGR.PA) said on Friday it had struck a long-term bancassurance partnership deal with Italy's Banco BPM (BBPM) (BAMI.MI) to provide non-life insurance products and related services through BBPM's networks. As part of the deal, the French bank's Credit Agricole Assurances (CAA) division will buy from Banco BPM 65% of the share capital of both Vera Assicurazioni and Banco BPM Assicurazioni. Reporting by Sudip Kar-Gupta, Editing by Louise HeavensOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ European shares eye upbeat end to week on banks, healthcare boost
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-23 | by ( Amruta Khandekar | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

SummarySummary Companies STOXX 600 rises 0.2%Banks, healthcare firms gainBavarian Nordic at the top of STOXX 600Italian business morale rises in DecemberDec 23 (Reuters) - Europe's STOXX 600 edged higher on Friday, with gains in healthcare firms and banks putting the index on course to end the last week before Christmas on an upbeat note. The region-wide STOXX 600 (.STOXX) rose 0.2% at 0915 GMT and was bound for a 0.8% weekly advance. Morale amongst Italian businesses and consumers rose in December, data showed on Friday, although the manufacturing sector was more downbeat. On the economic data front, a report showed Spain's economy expanded 0.1% in the third quarter, slowing from a 2.0% growth rate in the previous three-month period. Among STOXX 600 sectors, shares of retailers (.SXRP) rose 0.6% to lead gains.

☆ Credit Agricole strikes bancassurance deal with Italy's Banco BPM
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-23 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

The deal allows the provision of non-life insurance products and related services through BBPM's networks for a 20-year period. It also stipulates that the French bank's Credit Agricole Assurances (CAA) division will buy from Banco BPM 65% of the share capital of both Vera Assicurazioni and Banco BPM Assicurazioni. "We are very pleased that our long-standing strategic partnership with Banco BPM will soon be strengthened," Credit Agricole CEO Philippe Brassac said in a statement. Credit Agricole has a 9.18% stake in Banco BPM, Italy's third-largest bank behind Intesa Sanpaolo (ISP.MI) and UniCredit (CRDI.MI). Three weeks ago, Banco BPM picked Credit Agricole over a rival bid from French insurer AXA (AXAF.PA) to start exclusive talks over a non-life insurance partnership.

☆ Italy to cap Monte dei Paschi CEO's annual pay at 240,000 euros
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-21 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

MILAN, Dec 21 (Reuters) - Italy is preparing to cap at 240,000 euros ($254,496) the yearly pay of top executives hired from 2023 in banks rescued by the state, a move that has bearings for the reappointment of Monte dei Paschi's (MPS) (BMPS.MI) chief executive. After failing to clinch a sale of Monte dei Paschi to UniCredit (CRDI.MI) last year, the Treasury in February hired veteran banker Luigi Lovaglio to lead the Siena-based lender. He runs for reappointment in April when Monte dei Paschi's current board expires. As a bailed out bank, Monte dei Paschi already applies curbs to executives' pay and Lovaglio's fixed pay amounts to 466,000 euros a year with no variable compensation. Under terms Italy agreed with European Union authorities, MPS executives cannot earn more than 10 times the average employee salary.

☆ Italy prosecutors seek trial for ex-MPS top execs in bad loan probe
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-16 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

Both Profumo and Tononi in the past chaired Monte dei Paschi's board of directors. The prosecutors in the statement said they were not requesting a trial for Monte dei Paschi. Prosecutors have been looking into allegations of false accounting and market manipulation in relation to the classing of loans as impaired at Monte dei Paschi up to 2017. Lawyers for Profumo, Tononi and the other two people did not immediately reply to a request for comment from Reuters. A judge will decide on the request for trial at a hearing in the near future.

☆ UniCredit CEO Orcel has leverage in pay debate
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-06 | by ( Lisa Jucca | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

Under UniCredit’s remuneration policies, Orcel receives 2.5 million euros in salary, with the potential for twice that via an annual bonus. A regulatory cap prevents UniCredit from paying its CEO a bigger bonus, so the board may have to hike his fixed salary to pay him more. UniCredit Chairman Pier Carlo Padoan said Orcel has not asked for a pay rise. Follow @LJucca on TwitterloadingCONTEXT NEWSItalian lender UniCredit will review the pay package of its Chief Executive Andrea Orcel ahead of its 2023 general meeting. Orcel’s pay package envisages a fixed salary of 2.5 million euros a year and a bonus of up 5 million euros.

☆ Credit Agricole Q3 profit beats forecasts on corporate loan growth
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-10 | by ( ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +1 min

Credit Agricole joined French and European peers in booking higher-than-expected third-quarter profit, driven mainly by corporate loans and consumer finance which more than offset withdrawals at asset manager Amundi and lower trading revenue. Net income came in at 1.35 billion euros ($1.35 billion), down 3.6% from a year earlier but above a 1.17 billion euro average forecast in a Refinitiv analyst poll, helped by one-off items such as the sale of the La Medicale insurance business. But Credit Agricole, like most European banks, managed to take advantage of rising interest rates to post a strong increase in corporate loans, up by 15.4%, and consumer finance, which rose 12.6%. "Globally we have a lower risk profile than rivals, which means we may profit less from volatility," said Credit Agricole Deputy Chief Executive Xavier Musca. It said it would not increase its stake in Credit Agricole beyond 65%.

"When you run a business, if you keep hearing on the news that gas supplies are at risk, you've got to do something. It's not like you can start screaming and stamping your foot when they actually do halt flows for two hours a day," Checchi told Reuters. Higher prices contributed to the 16.2% rise in manufacturing turnover Italy reported in July on a calendar adjusted basis, but volumes also increased by 1.7%. "We invested 10 million euros to build two cogeneration plants and save 4 million euros this year," he said, adding Italcer saved another million by reducing the tiles' thickness to 8.5 from 10 millimetres. Italian business lobby Confindustria has warned of an "economic earthquake", saying the new government will struggle to offset the hit from energy prices on firms like Draghi managed to do without hurting Italy's fragile public finances.

The entrance to the headquarters of Monte dei Paschi di Siena (MPS), the oldest bank in the world, in Siena, Italy, August 11, 2021. Rome failed to meet an initial EU deadline when talks to sell MPS to UniCredit (CRDI.MI) collapsed a year ago. One of the sources said UniCredit and Banco BPM are still seen in Rome as the best options for MPS. Investor commitments cover more than half of the up to 900 million euro portion of MPS's share sale that will not be funded by the state. Five years after spending 5.4 billion euros to rescue MPS Italy is having to pump another 1.6 billion euros into the bank.

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