Doris leaves Mediobanca. Mediolanum sells its share on the market

Banca Mediolanum, on behalf of itself and Mediolanum Vita, yesterday began the sale of its historic stake in Mediobanca. The placement, which concerns a maximum of 29.1 million ordinary shares of the institution led by Alberto Nagel, equal to approximately 3.5% of the capital, will take place through an accelerated sale procedure coordinated by Morgan Stanley and reserved for institutional investors.

Goodbye after 25 years

The company led by Massimo Doris had invested in Piazzetta Cuccia in 2000, to support Esperia's private banking joint venture, which later gave birth to Mediobanca Premier. Mediolanum was therefore a historic ally of Nagel, as well as the largest shareholder in the consultation pact that groups together 11.6% of the capital (including 0.96% of Finprog, the Doris holding company) and that had supported the takeover bid of Banca Generali in exchange for the 13.1% of Generali that Mediobanca has . The sale of the stake will probably lead to a capital gain, but yesterday the feeling of many is that Mediolanum preferred to enhance its share before the start of the takeover bid of MPS, which should shortly receive the green light from Consob for the prospectus.

Similar considerations had been made by the Gavio group, another historic shareholder of Mediobanca that had already begun to sell part of its share package months ago.

The Doris family, which has often supported the management of Piazzetta Cuccia, had not in fact expressed itself on the MPS takeover bid, leaving the decision to the competent body, namely the board of directors of Mediolanum. Last May 26, to those who asked him about the banking risk, and the MPS takeover bid on Mediobanca, the CEO of Mediolanum had replied: «On paper all takeover bids make sense, there is no univocal evaluation». Similar considerations from Marina Berlusconi, president of Fininvest and 30.1% shareholder of Mediolanum, who in principle had never said she was in favor of public intervention in market operations. «We are only spectators – Marina had said to those who asked her for an opinion – there are not yet all the elements to make a complete reflection and in any case what Massimo Doris said seems very correct to me: the boards of directors will have to express themselves».

The effects on banking risk

The president of Fininvest had then specified: "on this game, as on all the others, whatever the market chooses will be the right one". And while waiting for the market's decision and the start of the takeover bid by the institute led by Luigi Lovaglio, yesterday Mediolanum decided to sell its 3.5% of Piazzetta Cuccia, perhaps it will have to do so with a small discount on the stock market prices (yesterday Mediobanca rose by 0.82% to 19.73 euros), but it will not be forced to choose whether or not to become a minority shareholder of a bank owned by the Treasury (which has 11.73% of MPS). A choice that will now be up to the investors selected by Morgan Stanley, in the meantime while waiting for the placement of Mediobanca's 3.5%, yesterday Mediolanum rose by 0.27% to 14.62 euros.