Banco BPM: unscheduled board meeting on Tuesday 25 August to discuss the MPS OPA
Work on Mediobanca continues, whilst Intesa is gearing up for the complaint to Consob
Now that Luigi Lovaglio has laid his cards on the table, it is the turn of the other players at the table to respond to his offers. However, the list of participants in this long game of Risk has now swelled considerably, given that there are several takeovers underway simultaneously; consequently, few expect a response from shareholders as early as next week (which is set to be packed with meetings, as yet unofficial). Indications, however, are likely to emerge from the forthcoming Banco BPM board meeting, scheduled for very soon: the management at Piazza Meda has decided to convene an (unscheduled) meeting of the board of directors – which had not previously been on the agenda – for the afternoon of Tuesday 25 August.
According to Radiocor’s account, there is said to be just one item on the agenda, albeit a challenging one set to dominate the discussion amongst the board members for some time: the exchange offer launched in recent days by MPS, which, amongst other things, has placed the bank back under the ‘passivity rule’. This is not the first time in the bank’s recent history that this has happened, given that UniCredit’s public offer, which was subsequently withdrawn, dates back to November 2024.
It remains to be seen, following the discussion at the BPM board meeting, what position the directors representing the French bank Crédit Agricole – a major shareholder in the bank with a stake of over 29 per cent – will take.
Following the twin takeovers by Mps of the bank in Piazza Meda and Banca Generali, attention is now turning to the shareholders of the various banks, who will ultimately have to decide whether or not to approve the offers (and, where appropriate, give their consent in advance). The list is getting longer and longer.
Bank shareholders
So far, the only person to speak out openly, following the upheaval triggered by MPS’s counter-offer, has been Pierluigi Tortora, owner of Plt Holding and one of the architects of the deal that brought Lovaglio back at the helm of Monte dei Paschi. In his view, ‘the proposals on the table demonstrate that the bank is no longer simply called upon to defend its value, but can play a leading role in creating new value’. The green light, then. But Rocca Salimbeni’s shareholder register includes other heavyweights, from Delfin owned by the Del Vecchio family – who are themselves grappling with a difficult reorganisation of their holding company – right through to the entrepreneur Francesco Gaetano Caltagirone, who has previously made no secret of his doubts about the merger with the Bank, as well as the Treasury and the Blackrock fund.
