Milan (Reuters) – The shareholders of Mediobanca rejected Thursday the proposal of the director general of the Alberto Nagel bank aimed at buying Banca Generali, an acquisition which would have created the second largest heritage manager in Italy.

This result is a setback for Alberto Nagel’s strategy aimed at blocking the buy -in -law offer by the competitor Monte Dei Paschi Di Siena (MPS), a project supported by the State.

The opposition to the project was carried out by the two main investors in MediBanca, the Del Vecchio and Caltagirone families, who hold almost 30% of the capital together.

To postpone MPS’s offer, Alberto Nagel had offered an agreement of 6.8 billion euros in April to buy Banca Generali, owned by Generali, the largest Italian insurer, whose main investors are Mediobanca and the Del Vecchio and Caltagirone families.

MediBanca said the offer for Banca Generali was obsolete.

“This is clearly a missed opportunity, for the moment, for the development of our bank and the Italian financial system,” said Alberto Nagel in a press release.

He stressed that this was due in part to “shareholders who also expressed an obvious conflict of interest in their commitment activities, favoring their own interests linked to other Italian situations or assets to the detriment of those of the shareholders of Mediobanca”.

According to Italian regulations on acquisitions, Mediobanca needed shareholders’ approval for the agreement concerning Banca Generali due to the supply of MPS, which would have become more expensive if MediBanca had bought Banca Generali.

The rejection of the agreement with Banca Generali eliminates a potential obstacle to the acquisition of Mediobanca by Monte Dei Paschi.

During Thursday, 35% of shareholders supported the operation, while 42% voted against or abstained, which did not reach the required threshold of 50% of the capital present at the Assembly.

(Written by Andrea Mandala, Elena Smirnova, edited by Augustin Turpin and Blandine Hénault)

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