Despite the correction in Friday's session – due to the first profit-taking and the idea, supported by the declarations of the CEO Carlo Messina, that Intesa is not willing to pay a significant premium compared to the stock exchange values – Generali closed with a balance of +12,3% the week in Piazza Affari which saw them as the absolute protagonists: the overall volumes of the five sessions are close to 10% of the share capital (9,7%) and the project for a merger being studied by Intesa Sanpaolo has sent the share price to the highest for a year up to almost 16 euros, a value never touched since the first days of January 2016.
The leading shareholder of Generali and probable crossroads for any reorganization, Mediobanca, followed suit: against a drop of 1,2% today, the weekly balance is +5,6% with trading at 6,5% % of capital. The appeal to Piazzetta Cuccia was not only indirect, i.e. motivated by a possible aggregation of its insurance subsidiary, but also direct, when some hypotheses suggested that Mediobanca itself was in Intesa's sights as a step to get to the Leone. It raised its head again in the last session (+0,8%) but Intesa Sanpaolo from the first rumors about the Trieste countryside gathered an overall drop of 8,2%. Even if Messina reiterated that the strategic evaluations in progress must not affect the financial solidity of the institute and allow it to maintain an important dividend policy, analysts confirm their doubts about the goodness of the project: "We continue to maintain our perplexities on the 'possible Intesa-Generali merger in the light of the complexity of the transaction from an industrial and regulatory point of view and the limited synergistic potential on the cost side with respect to deals on other businesses - underlined by Equita - In our opinion if the deal were completed, the increase in the complexity of the combined entity and the increase in the exposure to Italy would not allow Intesa Sanpaolo to maintain the current premium on multiples compared to its competitors'.
The fear of the investment houses is then linked to the financial commitment necessary to take control of the insurance group: 'It is unlikely that the market will like offers close to current values (about 10 times the expected profits in 2017), without the payment of an adequate control premium – add the ICBPI analysts – even more so if the offer were to present a significant component in shares. Which would make the risk of failure of the proposal even higher, given that the valuation of the target would depend on the market assessments of the buyer's share'.
The fall (-5,2%) in the last weekly session due to the prospect of a capital increase with subscription prices for the new shares at a steep discount put an end to the Unicredit mini-rally which had exploited the hypothesis of a sale of the 8,5% stake held in Mediobanca: over the horizon of five sessions, the stock has in any case gained 3%. The institute's vice president Fabrizio Palenzona reiterated yesterday to Radiocor Plus that Unicredit is not willing to sell its stake in Mediobanca. The operators' attention in today's negotiations has therefore shifted to the 13 billion euro recapitalization operation which – according to Il Messaggero – could start on Monday 6 February.
