MILAN (Reuters) – Intesa Sanpaolo plans to steer clear of the merger and acquisition frenzy which has gripped domestic rivals, the chief executive of Italy’s biggest bank said on Tuesday.
Speaking to analysts after Intesa reported 2024 results, CEO Carlo Messina said the bank would remain “very, very far from all this confusion that we have in the market”.
Antitrust regulations prevent Intesa from growing domestically, and Messina said asset management assets, which have traditionally been on the bank’s wish list, remained expensive even taking into account benefits from favourable capital rules known as “Danish Compromise”.
Intesa’s rival UniCredit has launched a takeover bid on smaller rival Banco BPM, built a stake in Germany’s Commerzbank and, more recently, bought a 4.1% holding in Italy’s top insurer Generali.
Messina, however, said that in managing an organisation like Intesa the priority was to give its “army of employees” clarity on the direction of travel.
“You are not to manage an organisation like it is a hedge fund,” he said.
Messina ruled out Intesa could take up minority stakes, a strategy which was “a crazy way of working with value creation” unless the goal were to simply book a capital gain on the stake.
(Reporting by Valentina Za, editing by Gavin Jones)
