Bper, Sondrio, Carige and beyond. What happens between Unipol and the ECB

2 October 20237 months ago babelfish

Banking moves and counter-moves by the Unipol group. Facts, rumors and insights. The point by Michele Arnese and Emanuela Rossi

Unipol's not so smooth advance in the banking system continues. The latest move by the insurance-financial giant chaired by Carlo Cimbri led to the acquisition of 19.7% of Banca Popolare di Sondrio, where it was already the largest shareholder. This is a shareholding that goes alongside that of 19.9% of Banca Popolare Emilia Romagna (here too Unipol has the largest percentage of capital, 19.9% ). At this point a very respectable "nest egg" which in the future could perhaps lead to a merger between the two institutes, according to some observers. But for others it is not a scenario desired by Cimbri. Let's see why.

WHAT DO THEY THINK ABOUT UNIPOL IN FRANKFURT?

According to Startmag, the European Central Bank is following these "incursions" by Unipol into the world of credit with particular attention. However, there is a "but": if – as the Bank of Italy also did – it viewed the Carige operation favorably for systemic reasons, now Frankfurt observes, not with particular pleasure, that Unipol is also becoming a de facto parent company banking without however being supervised by the ECB .

SOLE SKEPTICAL ABOUT BPER-SONDRIO INTEGRATION

In short, Cimbri has more than one hand in the banks but does not intend to make credit the core business of the group to avoid the supervision of the Central Institute. Those who are skeptical about Cimbri's true credit aims are also Il Sole 24 Ore : "Whoever on the market expects a rapid integration between Bper and Banca Popolare di Sondrio risks being disappointed – wrote the banking expert journalist to the Confindustria daily newspaper edited by Fabio Tamburini – After having risen to 20% of Bper's capital, Unipol has now reached an identical share in the Valtellina institute. The insurance company's industrial objective, namely to protect the renewed agreements for the distribution of policies and promote broader financial collaboration, has already been achieved. The merger between the two institutes, with the consequent synergies, remains a plausible scenario for the future but not an immediate one. We will talk about it, financial sources explain, when the conditions exist so that the operation is not considered hostile to Sondrio, the last bank to have approved the transformation from a cooperative into a joint-stock company".

THE OPERATION IN POPOLARE DI SONDRIO

Therefore the Bolognese company, as announced in a note released last Thursday, has completed the purchase of 46.3 million ordinary shares, equal to approximately 10.2% of the share capital of Popolare di Sondrio, through the announced acquisition procedure “reverse accelerated bookbuilding”, aimed at qualified investors and foreign institutional investors, at 5.10 euros per share for a total outlay of approximately 235.6 million. In this way it rose from 9.5% to 19.7% of the capital. At the beginning of September the company announced in a note that it had started the preparatory activities to obtain the necessary authorizations from the competent Supervisory Authorities (Italian and foreign) to "evaluate, taking into account the market conditions and the general context from time to time existing, possible future increases in the stake held by the Unipol Group in Banca Popolare di Sondrio".

As Ansa notes, also considering the share that Unipol owns in Bper, the Bolognese group's investment in the banking sector, which is also functional to binding the banks to the distribution of its insurance products, rises – at stock market values - to approximately 1.3 billion euros.

Unipol itself motivated the growth in capital with the aim of "consolidating the industrial and corporate partnership" in the bancassurance sector, of "increasing the stability of the shareholding structure" of Sondrio to stimulate it "according to the best market practices".

THE OPINION OF THE ANALYSTS

Now experts are waiting for Cimbri's future moves.

Already three weeks ago, Kepler Cheuvreux analysts stated that expectations of a merger between Bper and Popolare di Sondrio "have been circulating for some time, as" the two banks "have the same insurance partner and shareholder but also the same partners in the asset management and leasing, in addition to a perfect complementarity of geographical distribution" and therefore Bper could no longer be seen "as a potential candidate for an operation" with Montepaschi.

Now, according to Mediobanca, the already "high" chances of a merger "rise further", with a timing that will depend "on the restructuring process and Bper's evaluation". As Ansa still recalls, the CEO of Bper, Piero Montani, said a few days ago that the bank will be involved for "one more year" in the integration of Banca Carige and the Ubi branches and reiterated that he is not interested neither from a "strategic" nor "geographical" point of view to a merger with Siena.

But – as already mentioned – a banking risk expert such as the Sole 24 Ore journalist, Alessandro Graziani, wrote: "The industrial objective of the insurance company, that is to protect the renewed agreements for the distribution of policies and promote broader collaboration financial, has already been achieved. The merger between Bper and Sondrio, with the consequent synergies, remains a plausible scenario for the future but not an immediate one."

Also because Unipol would not like the ECB meddling in its accounts.

This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/economia/bper-sondrio-unipol-bce/ on Sun, 01 Oct 2023 14:01:56 +0000.