ROME (Reuters) -A potential tie-up between Banco BPM and Monte dei Paschi di Siena (MPS) could only be considered once the Tuscan bank completes its takeover bid for Mediobanca, Banco BPM investor Davide Leone said on Tuesday.
Banco BPM has said it will now look at strategic options, as a consolidation round sweeps Italian banking, after UniCredit this month dropped its hostile takeover bid for BPM.
“Any transaction that makes strategic sense will be welcomed, hopefully with the government’s backing,” the financier said, cautioning against any decision being made before September 8, when MPS’ 14.6 billion euros ($16.9 billion) all-share bid for Mediobanca end.
“How can you know the value of MPS without knowing how many shares of Mediobanca it will come to own?,” Leone told Italian newswire Ansa in an interview.
The combination between MPS and Banco has long been favoured by the Italian Treasury and UniCredit’s withdrawal has revived speculation about a possible merger between the two lenders.
Leone, a long-standing shareholder in Banco BPM, historically owns just below 5% of the Milanese bank.
A regulatory filing last week showed the stake had risen to 8.2% but a spokesperson for Leone said the part exceeding around 5% is the result of derivatives built to hedge the position which are periodically rolled over.
On Thursday, MPS CEO Luigi Lovaglio said the bank was focused on its takeover offer for Mediobanca and that further deals would be something the state-backed bank could consider only in the future.
Lovaglio did however reiterate that a combination with Mediobanca would give MPS a scale that would allow the Siena-based bank to take part in a second round of consolidation, which he expects to take place within a couple of years. ($1 = 0.8648 euros)
(Reporting by Giulia Segreti; Editing by Valentina Za)
