Banca Mediolanum, Doris: “Mediobanca has proposed a merger but we are left alone”

Banca Mediolanum rejected a merger proposal made by Mediobanca. Presented by Alberto Nagel, managing director of the institute in piazzetta Cuccia, to his counterpart, Massimo Doris. This was revealed by Doris himself, at a press conference to present the bank’s accounts for the first nine months. Nagel “had made me the offer months ago, maybe more than a year ago. We had talked on the phone and told me about it,” he explained. “I thanked him, I appreciated that he saw Mediolanum as an ideal and important partner for Mediobanca, but I explained to him that we intended to be alone”. The merger between the two institutions is often hypothesized in the reports of financial analysts and Nagel himself has tried to test the ground. In any case, Doris said she was satisfied with the management of Mediobanca, of which Banca Mediolanum is a shareholder with 3.3%. “We are shareholders, we are in the agreement and as long as Mediobanca satisfies us as shareholders it will be fine for us”, he explained that “we have no plans to buy more shares” of the bank. “No meeting”, then, with Leonardo Del Vecchio and Francesco Gaetano Caltagirone, significant shareholders of Mediobanca, who have given life to a new consultation agreement. Meanwhile, Banca Mediolanum closed the first nine months of 2021 with a net profit of € 375.8 million, up 50% on an annual basis. The board of directors also approved the distribution of an interim dividend of 0.23 euro per share. Total net inflows were positive for € 6.43 billion, 11% more than in the first nine months of 2020, while managed net inflows reached € 4.63 billion, up 56%. With the target of € 8.5 billion in deposits for the whole of 2021 and of € 6 billion for managed deposits. In addition, the bank, which now has a stable asset beyond the 30 billion mark, will join the group of significant banks in Europe from January 2022 “and we will therefore be supervised directly by the ECB”, concluded Doris.