Spanner in the works

10 June 2020 By Lisa Jucca Follow @LJucca

Italy’s antitrust watchdog thinks the bank’s takeover of its smaller peer will hurt competition. This contrasts with the ECB’s favourable view of the deal. For Intesa CEO Carlo Messina, reconciling the two views could mean selling more branches or paying a higher price.

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Italy’s antitrust authority is not in a position to clear Intesa Sanpaolo’s hostile takeover bid for smaller peer UBI Banca because of uncertainties over planned asset sales, according to preliminary findings on the deal seen by Reuters on June 9.

The watchdog said it believes the planned purchase would create a dominant position in several Italian regions. The regulator decided not to consider Intesa’s planned sale of up to 500 branches to mid-sized lender BPER Banca. It added that Intesa could fail to carry out the BPER deal if it ended up only controlling just 50% plus one share of UBI’s capital.

The European Central Bank authorised on June 5 Intesa’s bid for UBI.

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