Overview
- Intesa Sanpaolo on Monday launched a voluntary public offer valuing MPS at about €30.6 billion, proposing 1.6 new Intesa shares plus €1 cash for each MPS share and a headline per-share value of €10.09.
- The bid was paired with a deal that would leave Mediobanca and about 625 MPS branches with Intesa while ceding 635 branches, the MPS brand and most central structures to Unipol for transfer into Bper, with Unipol proposing a capital increase up to €2.5 billion to fund that purchase.
- Banco BPM’s formal merger-of-equals proposal to MPS on Sunday remains on the table, but Intesa’s OPAS triggered MPS’s legal passivity rule and crystallized a direct contest that shareholders must now resolve.
- Intesa also approved a temporary purchase of a roughly 3.01% stake in Generali and structured derivative cover to protect the accounting treatment of Mediobanca’s Generali holding, a move that heightens the offer’s strategic focus on insurance control.
- The outcome now depends on decisions by major shareholders including the MEF, potential counteroffers, and approvals from the ECB, Banca d’Italia, Antitrust and IVASS with markets and boards watching the next formal steps closely.