Italy’s largest banking group, Intesa Sanpaolo, has made an unexpected offer worth 30.6 billion euros in cash and shares to acquire rival Monte dei Paschi di Siena (MPS).
By purchasing the medium-sized UBI in 2020, Intesa controlled one fifth of the Italian banking market, but stayed away from mergers and acquisitions last year due to antitrust restrictions.
In order to address antitrust concerns, the bank announced that it had made an agreement to transfer 635 branches and brands belonging to MPS to the insurance company Unipol, the main shareholder of BPER Banca, in case the acquisition is realized.
Intesa announced that the bank to be formed after the merger will be the second largest bank in the euro zone, after Spain’s Santander bank, with a market value of 126 billion euros.
While the offer is 12.5 percent above Friday’s closing price of MPS shares, it is considered a step that could pave the way for a new wave of consolidation in the Italian banking sector.
