Banco BPM urges UniCredit to drop bid if it can’t meet govt’s demands

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MILAN (Reuters) -Banco BPM on Thursday urged suitor UniCredit to abandon its buyout offer, given the bank led by CEO Andrea Orcel has told authorities it cannot comply with the conditions Rome has imposed to authorise the BPM takeover.

UniCredit on Wednesday secured from market regulator Consob a 30-day suspension of its tender offer for Banco BPM as it seeks to persuade the government the conditions cannot be met in their current form.

A government source told Reuters on Wednesday the government has no intention of altering its demands.

Banco BPM said UniCredit had not made clear to investors what it had told authorities in Rome instead, meaning the conditions Italy has imposed in the name of national security interests cannot be implemented.

Such a predicament “which was also never disclosed by UniCredit to the market, should in itself cause the offer to lapse”, the bank said.

UniCredit has raised objections to the prescriptions and engaged with the government officials who are in charge of monitoring they are implemented in an effort to prove it is impossible to comply.

Orcel has antagonised Italy’s government by swooping on BPM in November, a move that thwarted Rome’s efforts to encourage a tie-up between BPM and state-backed Monte dei Paschi di Siena.

(Reporting by Andrea Mandalà; Editing by Valentina Za)