Financial Insights That Matter
Posted By Global Banking and Finance Review
Posted on January 15, 2025
ROME (Reuters) – The Italian government has no plans to strengthen its “golden power” legislation to intervene in mergers and takeovers in the financial sector, Economy Minister Giancarlo Giorgetti said on Wednesday.
The golden power rules, designed at the European Union level to fend off unwanted non-EU buyers, were expanded during the COVID-19 pandemic to shield companies deemed as strategic when valuations crashed. Some countries, including Italy, have applied the legislation to the banking sector.
There is now speculation in the Italian media that the government is working on a decree that would bolster the golden powers to give the government more say in UniCredit’s unsolicited bid for Banco BPM.
“There is no decree,” Giorgetti told reporters in parliament.
UniCredit’s swoop on Banco BPM has upset the government as such a deal could scupper Rome’s plan to broker a merger between BPM and state-backed Monte dei Paschi di Siena to create a competitor to UniCredit and Intesa Sanpaolo.
Giorgetti said the government was still waiting for UniCredit to disclose full terms of its proposed takeover.
“We are waiting for them to notify the operation,” he said.
Golden powers require Italian government approval for any decision, act or transaction involving a company owning strategic assets which result in changes in the ownership, control or availability of such assets, including merger deals.
But in practice Rome has limited scope to intervene, as European Union treaties promote free movement of capital in the bloc, sources previously told Reuters.
Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s government could ask for guarantees on bank branches to ensure services to customers and preserve jobs.
European Union authorities are currently reviewing rules covering the golden powers and Rome is keen to understand how they will eventually change, a government official said on Wednesday, asking not to be named due to the sensitivity of the matter.
(Reporting by Giuseppe Fonte, editing by Gianluca Semeraro and Jane Merriman)
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