Monte dei Paschi di Siena launches takeover bid for rival Mediobanca

(Sharecast News) - Italy's oldest lender jumped into the wave of consolidation sweeping over Italian banking. Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena launched a €13.3bn takeover bid for rival Mediobanca valuing the latter's shares at €15.992, which equates to a premium of 5%, with a proposed exchange ratio of 23 new MPS shares for every 10 of the acquisition target.

"MPS intends to play an active role in the ongoing consolidation scenario in the Italian banking sector," MPS said.

A deal would result in the creation of the country's third largest banking group, behind rivals Sanpaolo and UniCredit.

MPS highlighted how the transaction would marry its retail and commercial activities to Mediobanca's wealth management and investment banking operations.

However, that lack of overlap meant that the potential synergies from a takeover were limited, analysts at KBW said, according to Dow Jones Newswires.

They also noted the potential obstacle posed by the valuation differential between the two.

"With BMPS trading at lower [price to earnings multiples] than MB our first impression is that this offer has limited [chances] of success," KBW said.

The Italian state held a 11.7% stake in BPM, having bailed it out in 2017.

In the first year after the takeover MPS pegged the potential pre-tax synergies at €700m, together with €600m of integration charges.

As of 0920 BST shares of MPS were falling by 6.97% to €6.482 in Milan trading.