Back to Piazza Affari in the midweek session. After a promising start, the Ftse Mib index gradually lost share, closing at 24,778 points, down by 0.46%. Markets snubbed dovish comments from both Fed and ECB officials. In an interview with the Japanese newspaper Nikkei, the exponent of the board of the European central bank Fabio Panetta stated that “the conditions we are witnessing today do not justify the reduction in the pace of purchases, and a discussion on the exit from Pepp is still clearly premature ”.
Unipol bad today (-3.83% to 4.50 euros). Yesterday, with the markets closed, the subsidiary UnipolSai announced that it will purchase a total of 30,000,000 ordinary shares of Banca Popolare di Sondrio, equal to approximately 6.62% of the bank’s share capital. A move that increases the chances of a deal between Bper (which sees Unipol as the first shareholder) and Pop Sondrio.
Developments that triggered strong sales on Bper (-4.8% at closing) with the market seeing the probability of a rapprochement between Bper and Banco BPM decrease, a hypothesis that in recent days was back in vogue. Banco Bpm shares, on the other hand, rose (+ 0.46%) reaching new highs since March 2018 with market operators returning to focus on a scenario with Banco BPM prey to Unicredit.
Among the big companies, Eni did well (+ 0.45%). According to reports from Upstream Online, the group led by Descalzi is in talks with Alpha Petroleum Resources to set up a JV for UK upstream activities in the North Sea. Alpha Petroleum is a private oil company operating mainly in the North Sea with a gas production of 30 mn scf / d.