Crédit Agricole asks the ECB to allow it to rise above 20% in Banco Bpm

A new twist in the banking risiko. While UniCredit is still waiting for the judgement of the Lazio Regional Administrative Court to which it appealed against the obstacles of the golden power to the acquisition of Banco Bpm, the French Crédit Agricole are strengthening their grip on the bank led by Giuseppe Castagna and are ready to rise above 20% of the capital. In fact, Crédit Agricole has announced that it will request authorisation from the European Central Bank to exceed the threshold of 20% of Banco Bpm's capital. The French group, which currently holds 19.8% of the Italian bank, specifies that Crédit's board of directors has approved the request for authorisation from the ECB with the aim of strengthening its investment but without wishing to 'acquire or exercise control over Banco Bpm', keeping its stake below the mandatory takeover threshold.

Sources close to the transalpine bank indicate that the move to rise above 20% would be motivated by technical reasons to "avoid the volatility of BancoBpm shares having an impact on the balance sheet" of the parent company. And that the purchase of the shares would serve to "be just above the 20% threshold" of Piazza Meda.In short, nothing would have changed on the part of Agricole with regard to the position and will already expressed in the past, according to which there is "no intention to acquire or exercise control over Banco Bpm," so much so that there would be no desire to ask for a representative on the board of BancoBpm.

What is certain is that although below the 30% threshold, the move to climb above 20% of Bpm's capital has an important bearing on the prospects of the takeover bid launched by UniCredit. And this is true even regardless of a possible relaunch that UniCredit CEO Andrea Orcel might launch, although this has been repeatedly ruled out. UniCredit's objective of reaching 66%, and of integrating Banco Bpm in order to fully extract the synergies of the acquisition, would in fact have to reckon with a Crédit Agricole that could - at this point - even reach a hypothetical 29% of the capital. A cumbersome presence to say the least, which would thus force Orcel to necessarily come to terms with the French, its partners on the asset management front, in an alliance whose renewal is due to expire in 2027.

On the offer launched by UniCredit on Banco Bpm in the morning, the chairman of the Milanese bank under Ops, Massimo Tononi, spoke on the sidelines of the Abi 2025 assembly. 'Basically, it seems to me that we are talking about a totally unsatisfactory offer,' said the banker. 'The shareholders have understood this, so there are no adhesions'.