Italian tycoon Caltagirone ups Monte dei Paschi stake to 8%, paper says #ItalyFinance

MILAN (Reuters) – Italian tycoon Francesco Gaetano Caltagirone has increased its stake in Banca Monte dei Paschi (MPS) to 8%, Italian daily La Stampa reported on Thursday on its website.

Caltagirone and MPS both declined to comment.

Caltagirone’s investments in Italy’s financial sector put the construction and newspaper magnate at the heart of a wave of consolidation sweeping the sector.

The stake increase comes after MPS in January launched a surprise 13.3 billion euro all-share offer to buy Mediobanca which the Milanese merchant bank has called hostile.

A long-standing investor in insurer Generali and Mediobanca, Caltagirone also owns a 5.3% stake in Anima Holding, a fund manager which Banco BPM is trying to buy, and a 2% holding in BPM itself.

In respect to MPS, Caltagirone, 81, has emerged as an ally of Italy’s conservative government which had repeatedly said it wanted to re-privatise the bailed-out lender in a way that would help it to create a third large banking player in the country.

In November, Caltagirone bought 3.5% of MPS when the Italian Treasury sold a chunk of the Tuscan bank. He then increased his stake to 5%.

The Treasury had long favoured combining MPS with Banco BPM, but a hostile buyout offer for BPM by bigger rival UniCredit derailed that plan. BPM had bought a 5% stake in MPS before UniCredit’s swoop, raising the prospect of an eventual tie-up.

(Reporting by Gianluca Semeraro; Editing by Sara Rossi and Valentina Za)