Italian merchant bank Mediobanca said on Sunday it had postponed Monday’s shareholder meeting to vote on its bid for Banca Generali to September 25 after some investors requested more information.
Mediobanca in April proposed buying private bank Banca Generali, whose main shareholder is Italy’s top insurer Generali with a 50.2% stake, as Mediobanca itself seeks to stave off a buyout by Banca Monte dei Paschi (MPS).
It would finance the deal by handing over its 13% stake in Generali and has said it would sign a partnership agreement with the insurer to distribute insurance and asset management products.
While confirming “the strong industrial and financial rationale” of the Banca Generali deal, Mediobanca said that several investors holding shares in both Mediobanca and Generali had expressed a need to understand the insurer’s position on Mediobanca’s proposal before voting.
Generali said on Thursday it had started the process of evaluating Mediobanca’s proposal.
Francesco Gaetano Caltagirone, an Italian tycoon and a major shareholder in Mediobanca with a nearly 10% stake, as well as an investor in MPS and Generali, has criticised the industrial rationale of the Banca Generali deal. He had called on Mediobanca’s board to delay the shareholder vote until the partnership agreement with Generali was finalised.
Instead, Francesco Milleri, the head of the holding company of the heirs of billionaire Leonardo Del Vecchio – the biggest investor in Mediobanca with a 19.8% stake and also a leading shareholder in MPS and Generali – said in April that a decision would be made once the insurer’s intentions were clear.
Both have repeatedly clashed with Mediobanca CEO Alberto Nagel, accusing him of relying excessively on income from Generali while holding back its growth, which Nagel rejects.
Due to the MPS bid and under Italian corporate rules, Mediobanca must secure shareholders’ approval to pursue the Banca Generali bid.
Luigi Lovaglio, the CEO of MPS, has expressed confidence that the Tuscan bank’s bid for Mediobanca could be launched in early July.
(Reporting by Gianluca Semeraro)
