BPER ITALIAN BANK INCREASES ITS OFFER ON CARIGE
MILAN (Reuters) – BPER Banca, Italy’s fifth-largest bank, has raised its bid to take over struggling competitor Carige to win against Italian subsidiary Crédit Agricole, two sources close to the Italian bank told Reuters on Sunday. case.
Before Christmas, BPER Banca had offered a symbolic euro to buy Carige and had also called for a recapitalization to the tune of one billion euros from the Italian Deposit Guarantee Fund which has controlled Carige since its bailout in 2019.
After the Guarantee Fund rejected BPER Banca’s initial offer, Crédit Agricole Italia had submitted its own offer but demanded a capital injection of a smaller amount, sources then indicated.
However, BPER Banca retained the favor of the Italian authorities. Some feared to see Crédit Agricole Italia strengthen its presence in Italy after the buyout last year of Creval for one billion euros.
On Saturday evening, the board of directors of BPER Banca approved the new offer for Carige, according to sources. BPER Banca declined to comment on this information.
The Deposit Guarantee Fund holds 80% of Carige’s capital. The sources indicated that if the Guarantee Fund accepted its offer, BPER Banca would consider offering to buy back the remainder of the capital at a price of 0.80 euro per share to take the entire capital of Carige.
(Andrea Mandala report, French version Matthieu Protard)