From banking risk to judicial risk. After the appeals to the TAR by Unicredit and Banco Bpm, another takeover bid ends up in court. It is that of Mps on Mediobanca. It was in fact presented a complaint to the Public Prosecutor's Office in Milan which hypothesizes an alleged action of "concert” between the two partners Francesco Gaetano Caltagirone and the holding Dolphin of the Del Vecchio family.
Mediobanca: “We did not file the complaint”
The complaint relating to the offer launched by Monte dei Paschi was reportedly presented in recent weeks, but differently from what was hypothesized on Thursday, there was no backing behind it Mediobanca who, yesterday evening, clarified that he had not “no complaint filed to the Milan Public Prosecutor's Office regarding the concert relating to ongoing market operations.
The complaint remains, however, even if it is not known who presented it, and asks to ascertain the existence of an alleged "concert", that is to say a hypothetical secret pact, between the Caltagirone group and Delfin, the financial company of the Del Vecchio family. Both are shareholders of Mediobanca, Mps and Generali, of which Mediobanca is the largest shareholder with a 13% stake.
The Milanese prosecutors have therefore a “model 45” file was opened, that is, registered in the register of "documents not constituting a crime report" and at this time the Prosecutor's Office has not assigned any investigative delegations, nor carried out any activity given the difficulty of verifying the hypothesis that there is an agreed program to acquire control. the position of the Prosecutor's Office is wait-and-see: the supervisory bodies will have to verify the alleged authorization anomalies or any suspicious operations on the market.
Mediobanca: Mediolanum and Norges approve takeover bid for Banca Generali
In the meantime, in view of the meeting on June 16th, good news is arriving for Mediobanca from Mediolanum and Norges Bank who have decided to vote in favor of the ops launched from Piazzetta Cuccia on Generali Bank.
Let's start from the first one. Downstream of the boards of directors that met on Wednesday, Mediolanum Bank and Mediolanum Vita, who have in their hands the 3,49 % of Mediobanca, have made official their “Yes” to the offer on Banca Generali: “the boards of directors of Banca Mediolanum and Mediolanum Vita – both adhering to the Consultation Agreement between Mediobanca shareholders – met today to deliberate on the vote to be expressed in the ordinary shareholders’ meeting of Mediobanca to approve the voluntary public exchange offer by Mediobanca on all the ordinary shares of Banca Generali. The board of directors of Banca Mediolanum and the board of directors of Mediolanum Vita have resolved to express a favorable vote, having positively assessed the prospects for industrial development and the financial forecasts related to the operation,” reads a note.
The Mediolanum group will most likely also have to be added to the 0,96% of the Milanese institute present in the portfolio of Finprog, the holding company of the Doris family and which is not part of the Mediobanca consultation agreement.
Shortly before the announcement of Mediolanum, the announcement of Norwegian Bank, which owns a share equal to'1,45% of Piazzetta Cuccia and which has made known on its website the vote in support of the board of directors' proposal in view of the shareholders' meeting on Monday.
The choice is in line with that of other institutional investors, including US pension funds (New York City Comptroller, California State Teachers' Retirement System, Florida State Board of Administration, Calpers) and asset managers (Calvert and Praxis), and follows the position taken by proxy advisors Iss and Glass Lewis, who have lined up in favour of the operation.
To date, the only vote that is definitely against is that of Caltagirone (10% of the capital). Dolphin (20%) has not yet expressed its opinion, while Family Edition Benetton (2,2%) announced that it will communicate its decision on Friday. Finally, there are the pension funds Enpam, Enasarco, Cassa Forense (5,5% overall) who are expected to align themselves with Caltagirone and vote against the takeover bid.
