MILAN (Reuters) – Italy’s bank deposit guarantee fund on Monday approved the sale of its stake in Carige to BPER Banca, a source familiar with the matter said.
BPER Banca, Italy’s fifth-largest bank, last month entered into exclusive negotiations with the Guarantee Fund to acquire its 80% stake in Carige.
Before Christmas, BPER Banca had offered a symbolic euro to buy out Carige and had also demanded a recapitalization of up to one billion euros from the Guarantee Fund.
Its initial offer having been rejected, BPER Banca said last month that it was asking for a recapitalization of 530 million euros.
BPER Banca will then buy the rest of the capital of Carige at a price of 0.80 euro per share.
Along with arch-rival Monte dei Paschi di Siena, Carige was one of the main banking headaches preventing Italy from completing a restructuring that began in 2015.
Carige will increase BPER Banca’s assets to around €155 billion, making it the fourth largest bank in Italy.
(Report Andrea Mandalà, written by Valentina Za; French version Camille Raynaud, edited by Matthieu Protard)
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