A double setback for MPS: Agricole has rejected the offer, and the Caltagirone Group will vote against the takeover bid at the shareholders’ meeting on 29 October

The two pieces of news from the financial world concerning MPS sound like a double blow. On the one hand, the Caltagirone group has officially confirmed that it will vote against the resolution at the MPS extraordinary general meeting scheduled for the end of the month, which is expected to approve, amongst other things, the two public offers for Banco BPM and Banca Generali, and the capital reduction aimed at paying the special dividend partly in Generali shares. With Caltagirone’s ‘no’ vote following those of Delfin and the Benettons, the proportion of Rocca Salimbeni’s bank’s shareholders opposed to the deal devised by CEO Luigi Lovaglio to counter Intesa Sanpaolo’s hostile takeover bid has risen to over 32 per cent. The statement indicates that the board of directors of F.G.C. SpA “has fully endorsed the assessments of the Committee of Independent Directors and has unanimously resolved to vote against all five items on the agenda of the extraordinary general meeting of Banca MPS.”

Meanwhile, Crédit Agricole’s chief executive, Olivier Gavalda, has rejected Monte dei Paschi di Siena’s bid for Banco BPM. “We have decided” not to tender the shares as part of the bid, Gavalda said, according to Bloomberg, at a press conference in Frankfurt. La Banque Verte holds just under 30 per cent of Piazza Meda.