Banco Popolare and BPM shareholders voted on Saturday to merge the two banks under an accord that will create Italy's third-largest lender and consolidate the country's troubled banking sector. As expected, the "yes" vote won easily at Banco Popolare, with some 23,683 votes in favour of the tie-up to 118 against. Over at the Banca Popolare di Milano (BPM), the ballot had been expected to be tighter after two associations of shareholder retirees called on those voting to reject a deal they said would create a giant institution with little clout.
But there too the "yes" vote won comfortably, with 7,315 shareholders supporting the merger while 2,731 voted against and 142 abstained. The new entity "Banco BPM" will be third only to Italian banking giants Intesa Sanpaolo and UniCredit. The merger will "strengthen the banking sector," Milan Polytechnic expert Marco Giorgino told AFP.
It brings much-needed breathing room to Italy's troubled lenders, which hold 360 billion euros of bad loans - about a third of the eurozone's total - and have been hit by the market turmoil sparked by Brexit. The new bank will have 25,000 employees, some 2,400 branches, four million customers and be a leader in northern Italy, one of the richest areas in Europe, managing some 171 billion euros ($187.6 billion) in assets.