(Bloomberg) — UniCredit SpA has made a surprise new move in the fight to dominate the Italian financial system by unveiling a minority stake in Assicurazioni Generali SpA.
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The Milan-based bank confirmed the purchase on Sunday, following earlier press reports. UniCredit emphasized that its 4.1% stake in Generali is a “pure financial investment,” with no strategic interest in the insurer. Yet the move may provide Chief Executive Officer Andrea Orcel with the tools to advance his primary objective: the acquisition of Banco BPM SpA.
UniCredit began accumulating a stake in Generali as part of its portfolio management in September, long before its bid for Banco BPM and the following wave of Italian dealmaking, said people familiar with the matter, who asked not to be identified. Recent developments have prompted the bank to accelerate its purchases, and Orcel could now leverage the nearly €2 billion ($2.1 billion) stake to play an active role in a complicated web of dealmaking and cross-holdings, using his influence to gain support for his own plans.
M&A Chessboard
Generali finds itself at the heart of a long-standing power struggle among its largest investors, who are themselves also involved in a series of mergers and acquisitions that could reshape Italy’s financial industry: the Milan-based investment bank Mediobanca SpA on one side, and the billionaire families of the late patriarch Leonardo Del Vecchio and Francesco Gaetano Caltagirone on the other.
The two clans are also major investors in Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena SpA, the state-backed lender that’s seeking to take over Mediobanca. The success of the bid would finally allow Giorgia Meloni’s government to realize its vision of creating a third major Italian banking group. A previous plan to combine Monte Paschi with Banco BPM was hampered by UniCredit’s unsolicited bid for the latter, to Rome’s irritation.
While Generali itself is not an active party in the M&A chessboard, its investors alongside the Italian government have two other key developments they are closely monitoring.
Generali’s board of directors decided last week not to compile a list of candidates for election to the governing body, raising pressure on shareholders to renew the firm’s leadership. Caltagirone, a construction tycoon, has repeatedly sought to influence the insurer’s strategy and clashed with its senior management in the past.
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