Usually the Opa they succeed, as an intelligent financier like recalled Rony Hamuai, but the one launched by Monte dei Paschi su Mediobanca as well as being surprising, it is “an atypical operation” where industrial synergies are not easily identifiable even if, it should be underlined, there are no overlaps between the two institutions. There is no one who does not see that the real objective of Caltagirone and Dolphin, the shareholders of Monte but also of Mediobanca and General admissionwhich inspired the Siena coup, is not only the construction of the third pole dear to the Government but the conquest of the Lion, where Piazzetta Cuccia, subject to a takeover and therefore to the passivity rule, will not be able to increase its participation in view of the very hot spring assembly in Trieste.
But the initial reaction of the Stock Exchange, strongly bearish on Monte dei Paschi which initially failed to make a price, also says something else and that is the strong perplexity on the role of the Government which is not perceived as an arbiter but as an active part given that it still has 11% of the Sienese bank and has never hidden its sympathy for the third banking pole to the point of appearing annoyed by Unicredit's takeover of Banco Bpm.
The Minister of Economy, Giancarlo Giorgetti, who has already raised much criticism for the possible use of the Golden Power on Unicredit-Banco Bpm, has the opportunity to clean up the image of the Government on the markets and in the banking field but should act as an independent arbiter, perhaps by accelerating the sale of its stake in MPS. You cannot criticize the German Government for the vetoes on Unicredit-Commerz, show annoyance for Unicredit-Banco Bpm and then favor Caltagirone and Delfin in the MPS-Unicredit operation. But the signals of appreciation already filtered by Palazzo Chigi and Mef for the MPS operation say the opposite and when a Government enters the field the market rightly becomes suspicious.
