Mps gets green light from Ivass to enter Generali through Mediobanca

Ivass has given the go-ahead for Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena's indirect entry into Assicurazioni Generali through the acquisition of a qualifying stake through Mediobanca. The Institute for Insurance Supervision's authorisation is part of the approval process of the voluntary totalitarian public exchange offer (Ops) launched in January by Banca Montepaschi on Mediobanca.

This is a crucial step for the Siena-based group, which aims to consolidate its role in the Italian financial system in this way. With Mediobanca as Generali's largest shareholder (around 13% of capital), the transaction would allow Mps to have an indirect influence on the Lion of Trieste, one of Europe's leading insurance groups, which is also strategic in terms of bank-insurance integration.

It must be said that the stake in the Trieste-based lion, as Banca Mps CEO Luigi Lovaglio has repeatedly indicated, "is not crucial" to the aggregation project between the two institutions. And it is precisely the share held in Generali that is the exchange "package" with which Mediobanca intends to complete its own takeover bid on Banca Generali, offering it to the Lion in order to obtain control of the banking group active in wealth management as a quid pro quo.

Ivass approved the transaction pursuant to article 68 of the Insurance Code. This is a technical but fundamental step for the execution of the offer, which will be addressed to all Mediobanca shareholders and will operate in compliance with Italian regulations, given the listing of the share on Euronext Milan.

The Ivass decision was taken by the Integrated Directorate, a collegial body of the Supervisory Authority, which is chaired by the Governor of the Bank of Italy, Fabio Panetta. Banca Mps must now obtain authorisation from the Antitrust Authority and, above all, from the ECB for the takeover bid, and once it has received the OK from Frankfurt, the final step will be the go-ahead for publication of the prospectus by Consob. Only after that will Siena be able to effectively launch the exchange offer for Mediobanca shares. The timeframe for the completion of the authorisation process was estimated by Lovaglio, during the call with analysts on the first-quarter results, between June and early July.