Nothing to do: the Draghi government has not yet given up on an Mps-UniCredit partnership, so much so that new rumors reported by Bloomberg indicate how the hypothesis of a state gift, despite the highest treasury ever received in the Sostegni Bis Decree, it was all but set aside.
On the other hand, the main Treasury shareholder of the Sienese bank knows well that, in order to convince Piazza Gae Aulenti to take over not the whole bank, but at least some of its assets, the only way is to make a potential deal attractive.
And so sources heard by the news agency underline that the MEF is thinking of offering further tax concessions to UniCredit, as well as providing other necessary gimmicks to stave off the spectrum of legal risks.
Meanwhile, while UniCredit stock continues to rise since Andrea Orcel officially became the bank’s new number one, MPS continues to lose ground:
stock lost 75% since it returned to trading on the stock exchange in October 2017, following the precautionary recapitalization of the state that took place in the same year. Not quite a state affair.
The strategy that the Draghi government intends to pursue remains that of the stew, that is to break down Monte dei Paschi into various assets to be sold to potential buyers to strip the bank of all those businesses that UniCredit CEO Andrea Orcel would see useless: practically making the prey more beautiful.
And this is actually not even new, because we have been talking about for months make-up to embellish a bride who, in the eyes of the market, is nothing short of ugly.
The government had had the opportunity to make MPS more beautiful: in fact, with the Support Decree Bis many analysts had counted on. A richer tax relief in favor of UniCredit, as had been rumored, which was then not granted by the Draghi executive.
In fact, the idea of moving the deadline for M&A operations to be implemented through incentives to the first half of 2022 was jumped into the decree; no even a change that would have made it go up the threshold of DTAs convertible into tax credits from 2% to 3% of the total assets of the minor subject involved in the merger.
Someone was now close to writing the word point to the Mps-UniCredit dossier, pointing out the coldness of Andrea Orcel, who has never looked with great enthusiasm at the Italian bank that no one seems to want.
Something will speed up, perhaps, in July, when they get to know each other the results of the stress tests conducted on European banks by the ECB and the EBA.
But in the last few hours, the new Bloomberg indiscretions have arrived, according to which the Draghi government has not yet given up on the UniCredit option.
Of course, the hope that Orcel & Co will take all that 64% into the hands of the Treasury has now almost completely vanished. For this reason, the idea would see the Mef begin to mobilize the assets that weigh down the Sienese bank in the eyes of Orcel. Something needs to be done, and also as soon as possible, since in the last few weeks it has also arrived a nice letter from the ECB.
However Mps has a hole of 2.5 billion euros which needs to be rehabilitated, and so far the European authorities have not yet understood how the institute intends to proceed.
Is it time maybe even a reshuffle?
The newspaper La Stampa reported today how the Treasury is thinking of a new figure, a new CEO to take the place of the current one, Guido Bastianini. The preferred route would be that of moral suasion, towards which the CEO is however opposing resistance.
All of this, while Andrea Orcel dreams of a new UniCredit, taking inspiration from two banks in the Asia Pacific area. Other than Siena.