Italy Meets BlackRock Officials Amid Paschi’s Bid for Mediobanca #ItalyFinance

(Bloomberg) — Italy’s finance chief and BlackRock Inc.’s top officials met on Thursday, discussing several topics including the takeover bid by Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena SpA of Mediobanca SpA.

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BlackRock President Rob Kapito and other representatives of the US investment firm met Italian Finance Minister Giancarlo Giorgetti and other officials in Rome, according to people familiar with the matter. The meeting was scheduled ahead of the bid to mark BlackRock’s 25th anniversary in Italy, said the people said, who asked not to be identified as the information is private.

“Paschi wasn’t the object of the meeting, but we confirm there was a normal, regular, institutional meeting,” Italy’s finance ministry said in response to a request for comment. A representative for BlackRock declined to comment.

BlackRock is among the shareholders who’ll have to approve the deal. It’s currently the third largest single investor in Mediobanca, after the billionaire Italian Del Vecchio and Caltagirone families, and holds a minority stake in Monte Paschi, according to Bloomberg data.

Monte Paschi needs the majority of its investors to support the bid for it to go ahead. It would also need to convince at least two-thirds of Mediobanca’s shareholders to accept the offer.

Siena-based Paschi shook up Italian financial circles last month when it launched a surprise takeover bid for its competitor, turning the world’s oldest bank into a potential buyer after more than a decade of restructuring that had made it the underdog of Italian banks.

Chief Executive Officer Luigi Lovaglio said on Thursday that a combined entity would have improved capabilities in asset gathering, private banking, investment banking and insurance.

Mediobanca has rejected the approach, calling it “destructive” and “devoid of industrial and financial rationale.”

Italy is in the process of privatizing Monte Paschi but still owns an 11.7% stake, making it the largest shareholder. Rome is seeking to use the firm as a building block to create a third large domestic bank to compete with the country’s biggest lenders, Intesa Sanpaolo SpA and UniCredit SpA.

Monte Paschi management and its advisers are holding separate investor meetings about the Mediobanca offer, the people said. In those gatherings Paschi executives are telling investors that its bid was made without interference from the government or other shareholders, the people said.

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