Banks, who treads the roads to Siena

Is the final phase of the long domestic banking reorganisation really about to begin or are we facing a false start? "All roads in the banking risiko lead to Siena," said Mps CEO Luigi Lovaglio a few days ago, crediting the hypothesis that something will happen and that Monte will be the pivot around which the next aggregations will revolve. However, Mps is unlikely to be an active player in the risiko any time soon. In the first place, because the ECB supervisory authority wants as a priority that the integration with Mediobanca, with or without a merger, be carried out effectively by standardising the information systems and guaranteeing the parent company an adequate supervision of risks. Secondly, Mps, in the case of a capital increase at the service of an Ops, is not certain to obtain from the shareholders' meeting the two-thirds vote in favour, given the opposition that emerged during the appointment of the board of directors. It is no coincidence, Barclays analysts point out, that a possible merger project between Monte and Banco Bpm could be more likely to succeed if it were the Milanese bank to launch an offer on Siena. A scenario that, in order to come true, takes for granted that the French of Credit Agricole - who now hold a blocking minority in the Banco Bpm assembly - give the go-ahead to the operation in exchange for a series of quid pro quos (branches, product companies, commercial agreements).

If it is true that all roads lead to Siena, as Lovaglio claims, it is not necessarily the case that it is only Banco Bpm that wants to take it. Will UniCredit remain at the window or will it enter the game, if only to stir things up? The issue of roads to Siena, moreover, does not only concern the two Milan-based banks. Kilometrically, to stay with the road metaphor, the city of the Palio is easier to reach from Bologna and Modena, where Unipol and its subsidiary Bper are based. 'Never say never,' replied Bper CEO Gianni Franco Papa a few days ago to those who asked him if the bank was thinking about new combinations.

The impression is that, should the final phase of Italy's long risiko really be triggered, none of the protagonists will think of standing on the sidelines and will try to play their own cards in a game that is not only banking but also concerns the shareholding structure of Generali (in which Mps, through Mediobanca, holds 13%). This would be a complex rearrangement of the Italia financial system, to be carried out, moreover, in the year preceding the political elections of 2027. A context that obviously does not make a market transaction between two large banks impossible, but certainly makes it more complicated than other mergers seen in the past.