The Local

The merged bank would be the largest lender in Northe Italy, one of Europe's richest regions: Photo: Giuselle Cacace/AFPBanco Popolare and BPM shareholders are set to vote Saturday on a proposed merger to create the country's third-largest lender, a much-anticipated accord expected to consolidate Italy's troubled banking sector. It is not yet a done deal: while the Banco Popolare votes are widely believed to be in the bag, there are fears shareholders at the Banca Popolare di Milano (BPM) may sink the merger, with two associations of former BPM employees set against it. The bank wrote to shareholders Monday to urge them to tu out and cast their ballots at the extraordinary meeting on forging "Banco BPM", which would be third only to giants Intesa Sanpaolo and UniCredit. This is an "important choice" in a "context of great uncertainty for the Italian banking system," BPM's CEO Giuseppe Castagna and board chairman Mario Anolli stressed in the letter. The merger has been on the boo,banco popolare and investor relations,banco popolare andamento titolo,banco popolare andamento,banco popolare andamento azioni,youapp banco popolare android,banco popolare app android ...ادامه مطلب

BPM's tie-up with Banco Popolare will create Italy's third-largest bank. Photo: Giuseppe Cacace/AFPItalian banks Banco Popolare and Banca Popolare di Milano announced on Wednesday they would merge, in a long-awaited deal that will create the country's third-largest bank by assets. The deal will create a lender with more than 25,000 staff and four million customers, and could help drive consolidation among Italy's fragmented banking sector. The deal has been delayed as the banks struggle to meet higher capital requirements, weighed down by hundreds of billions of euros of bad loans and weak economic growth. Banco Popolare, which will own 54 percent of the new company, is seeking to raise €1 billion ($1.1 billion) of capital before the merger is completed by December, Bloomberg News reported. "We are particularly pleased to have succeeded... given the severe and negative market conditions, in launching an operation as extraordinary and significant as the merger of Banco Popolare and Banca Popolare di Milano," said Banco Popolare president Carlo Fratta Pasini. The as-yet-unnamed lender will have two headquarters - the legal side headed from Milan and administrative side in Verona. With a market capitalisation of around €5.5 billion, €171 billion in assets and 2,500 branches, it will be Italy's number three lender behind Intesa Sanpaolo and UniCredit. The European Central Bank has been piling pressure on Italy's banks to deal with their weak balance sheets, and the head of its supervisory arm on Tuesday said the merger must succeed. "The bank has to be strong at the very beginning, this will be the third Italian bank, said Daniele Nouy, president of the ECB's Supervisory Council. Story continues below… The merger is "a very important operation, it has to be a success, precisely because it's maybe the first of a series of other ones," she told the European Parliament's committee for economic and monetary affairs. However, she waed that similar banking mergers elsewhere, ...ادامه مطلب