Italy's Akros denies any large investors shut out of last year's MPS stake sale (updated)

Anima Holding SpA

24/06/2025 11:58

Financial Times says EU examining Italy's sale of MPS stake

Akros says it conducted placement 'properly and transparently'

Adds details and Akros quotes

MILAN, June 24 (Reuters) - Italy's Banca Akros, the investment bank of Banco BPM BAMI.MI, said on Tuesday that no large investors were shut out of the placement it handled in November of a 15% stake in Monte dei Paschi (MPS) BMPS.MI on behalf of the Rome government.

The Financial Times reported on Tuesday that the European Commission was examining the Italian government's sale of shares in MPS, following claims that large investors, including Italy's second-biggest bank UniCredit CRDI.MI, Norway's oil fund and BlackRock BLK.N, were kept out of the bidding process.

"No large investors were shut out of the bidding process as written in the article, including UniCredit, Norway's oil fund and BlackRock", Banca Akros said in a statement.

In November, Italy's Treasury sold MPS stakes to Italy's third-largest bank Banco BPM, fund manager Anima Holding ANIM.MI, construction tycoon Francesco Gaetano Caltagirone and the holding company of the late billionaire Leonardo Del Vecchio, through an accelerated book-building (ABB) procedure handled by Akros.

UniCredit CEO Andrea Orcel told Italian daily la Repubblica last week that the bank tried to take part in the sale, "but we could not manage (it)". UniCredit had reported to market regulator Consob suspected anomalies in the sale, he added.

Akros said that UniCredit did not place any order to acquire a stake in MPS "in the context of the ABB procedure".

"The placement was conducted by Banca Akros properly and transparently, in compliance with the rules and practices governing such operations: all orders were collected, recorded, and processed in the same manner and no correctly submitted order to buy was ignored," the investment bank said in the statement.

Milan state prosecutors are looking into the government's sale of the stake in MPS and earlier in the month fetched documents relating to the transaction from the offices of Banca Akros.

 (Reporting by Gianluca Semeraro. Editing by Gavin Jones and Mark Potter)

 ((gianluca.semeraro@tr.com; +39 06 80 307 741;))