La Milan Public Prosecutor's Office is investigating thepurchase of Mps shares – achieved through Banca Akros (not involved in the investigation) – to verify whether there was any fraud in the acquisition agreement kept hidden from the market. In the operation the purchase was then made by Banco Bpm, Soul, Dolphin and from Caltagirone group. Instead, it was the one who gave in Tesoro.
Mps-Mediobanca: the beacon of the Milan prosecutor's office. What happened
In the investigation, entrusted to the Special Unit of the Financial Police of the Guardia di Finanza, documentary acquisitions were made in the same Banca Akros, which belongs to the Bpm group. These are the facts: last November, The Ministry of Economy has sold 15% of Monte dei Paschi, through a accelerated book buildingThe share was then purchased for a 8% from the Banco Bpm-Anima hub while the Caltagirone group and Delfin of the Del Vecchio family have acquired the 3,5% each.
The hypothesis that needs to be verified – according to what has been learned – is whether there were, among the actors of the operation, a agreement for the operation last autumn kept hidden from the market with consequent criminal profiles. This file runs parallel to the one - always linked to the banking risk - born from a defamation complaint filed by Mediobanca: at the moment the complaint is in “model 45”, that is, without suspects or hypotheses of crime.
However, maximum confidentiality remains on the subjects involved and on the hypothetical news of crime. Among the points on which attention would be concentrated is the fact that, according to what is reported by Corriere della Sera, “in that November 2024 within 9 minutes of the accelerated procedure all four guests offered the State the same prize on the value of MPS: 5% more".
Mps-Mediobanca: Here's where the investigation by the Milan prosecutors starts
A complex story that actually arises from a defamation lawsuit: to introduce her, it was Mediobanca which attached the contents of some articles. From this complaint would have arisen the file of the Milan Public Prosecutor's Office which collects, on the basis of the same complaint, also the corporate events relating to the operation of MPS on Mediobanca and, as mentioned, the role and the convergence of interests on the part of Delfin of the Del Vecchio family and the group of Francesco Gaetano Caltagirone.
In recent months Mediobanca has filed complaints in Consob and the ECB. At the moment, the checks are the responsibility of the supervisory bodies and, if any anomalies or profiles of stock manipulation on any agreements hidden from the market, it will be up to them to report them to the judiciary. The file currently opened in Milan for defamation is being handled by the deputy Robert Pellicano, head of the pool for combating economic and financial crimes.
Banca Akros, the reply
"Banca Akros reiterates that, in its role as global coordinator and bookrunner of the procedure, it conducted it in a correct and transparent, in full compliance with the rules and practices that govern such operations, with the participation of hundreds of institutional investors, via an IT platform”. This was stated in a note by the bank with reference to press articles relating to the sale of the MPS share which took place last November. “All orders received were collected, recorded and processed in the same way, all within the usual timeframes expected for this type of operation”.
