(Bloomberg) – Unicredit Spa made a new surprise decision in the fight to dominate the Italian financial system by revealing a minority participation in Assicirazioni Generali Spa.
Most of Bloomberg
The Bank based in Milan confirmed the purchase on Sunday, following previous press reports. Unicredit stressed that his 4.1% participation in Generali is a “pure financial investment”, without a strategic interest for the insurer. However, this decision can provide CEO Andrea Orcel with the tools to advance its main objective: the acquisition of Banco BPM Spa.
Unicredit began to accumulate participation in Generali as part of his portfolio management in September, long before his candidacy for Banco BPM and the following wave of the Italian agreement, said people familiar with the issue, who asked not to be identified. Recent developments have prompted the bank to accelerate its purchases, and Orcel could now take advantage of the participation of almost $ 2 billion ($ 2.1 billion) to play an active role in a complicated network of disagreement And labor, using his influence to obtain support for his own plans.
Mergers and acquisitions
Generali finds himself at the heart of a long-standing struggle among its greatest investors, which are themselves also involved in a series of mergers and acquisitions which could reshape the financial industry of Italy: the bank of Investment based in Milan Mediobanca Spa on one side, and billionaire families of the deceased Patriarch Leonardo del Vecchio and Francesco Gaetano Caltagirone on the other.
The two clans are also major investors in the SPA of Banca Monte Dei Paschi Di Siena, the lender supported by the State who seeks to take over Medibanca. The success of the offer would finally allow the Giorgia Meloni government to achieve its vision of creating a third large Italian banking group. A previous plan to combine Monte Paschi with Banco BPM was hampered by the unlined offer of Unicredit for the latter, to the irritation of Rome.
Although Generali himself is not an active party in the failures of mergers and acquisitions, his investors alongside the Italian government have two other key developments which they closely monitor.
The Generali Board of Directors decided last week not to compile a list of candidates for the director’s organ elections, which increases the pressure on shareholders to renew the company’s management. Caltagirone, a construction magnate, has repeatedly sought to influence the insurer’s strategy and faced with its senior management in the past.
