Risiko in the spotlight on the Milan Stock Exchange; MPS confirms its defensive strategy regarding Intesa

(Il Sole 24 Ore Radiocor) - The banking crisis continues to dominate trading on the Milan Stock Exchange, with shares in the institutions involved rising as investors await updates on the ongoing transactions, following yesterday’s extraordinary board meeting of Banca Monte Paschi Siena has not approved any new measures aimed at countering the bid by Intesa Sanpaolo , nor has it announced a postponement of the general meeting, which will be held as scheduled on 29 October.

No surprise defensive move, then, from Chief Executive Luigi Lovaglio, who, on the contrary, confirms the entire structure of the plan which envisages a two-pronged defensive operation involving Banco Bpm and Banca Generali . During the meeting held the day before, the board of directors of Rocca Salimbeni confined itself to presenting some preliminary considerations on the relaunch of Ca’ de Sass’s bid on 3 October, reiterating its reservations regarding both the valuation and the industrial rationale behind the transaction. There was, however, no mention of the position of Crédit Agricole, the largest shareholder of Banco Bpm with a 29.3 per cent stake, which has spoken out against Lovaglio’s plan.

According to Equita’s analysts, there are no ‘new arguments beyond what has already been highlighted previously’, as “these are largely questionable positions, which appear further weakened by the improved terms of Intesa’s offer and the clear stance taken by MPS’s main shareholders on the alternative proposal put forward by the bank”. Indeed, the proposal by the CEO of Monte dei Paschi has, in recent days, already received a ‘no’ from Delfin (with its 17.6 per cent stake), which has committed to accepting Intesa’s OPAS and to voting at the general meeting in line with the terms of the offer, and from Francesco Gaetano Caltagirone (with his 13.26 per cent stake), who will vote against all five items on the extraordinary agenda, including the merger with Mediobanca, the Benetton family (whose holding company Edizione holds 1.45 per cent of the share capital) and Praude Asset Management (0.72 per cent). In fact, the bloc of shareholders opposed to the CEO of MPS stands at over 33 per cent of the share capital.

“Taking into account, too, the blocking minority that has already come out in favour of Intesa’s offer and against the items on the agenda of the MPS extraordinary general meeting required to implement the defensive plan, the bank’s plan does not, mathematically speaking, have the necessary numbers to be authorised and, consequently, implemented”, Equita adds. This position “confirms that the main shareholders, whilst awaiting guidance from proxy advisers that will influence institutional investors’ votes, have recognised greater value in Intesa’s proposal”, the analysts specify. The group led by Carlo Messina, following the increase in the cash component on 3 October, has put an additional cash component of around 800 million on the table for MPS shareholders, on top of the 30.6 billion already offered, bringing the total to 3.8 billion.