The French insurer Axa announced Monday the upcoming sale of some 8% of the capital it holds in the Italian bank in difficulty Monte dei Paschi di Siena (MPS), only four months after having injected 200 million euros.
Axa, whose stake in Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena (…) amounts to 100,008,907 shares (held directly or indirectly, representing approximately 7.94% of the Bank’s share capital) announces today the launch of the sale of 100,000,000 shares of the Bank, said the insurer in a press release.
A long-time partner of MPS, Axa specifies that it will not seek a seat on the bank’s board of directors or influence its long-term strategy.
Our position has always been to be at the side of a partner, indicated last Thursday the general manager for Europe and Latin America of the Antimo Perretta group, during a press conference on the sidelines of the insurer’s annual results.
Now we hope that the bank will be put in better hands to continue this partnership, he continued, specifying that Axa was not interested in running a bank.
This announcement, made at the right time according to Axa, comes less than four months after the last capital increase of the Italian bank, on November 3, for 2.5 billion euros.
A total of 200 million was then contributed by Axa.
On the verge of a resounding bankruptcy, MPS had already been bailed out in 2017 by the state in the amount of 5.4 billion euros, which had become its main shareholder.
Since the publication of these results on February 23, Axa has been on the stock market. The action of the first French insurer ended Monday up 3.40% to 29.38 euros, a first since early November 2007.