By Adria Calatayud
Banco BPM said it reached a stake of just below 90% in Italian asset manager Anima Holding at the end of its offer period, clearing the minimum threshold it had set for the bid to become effective.
The Italian bank said late Friday that its offer was accepted by shareholders in Anima representing 67.976% of the company's share capital. When added to BPM's existing 21.973% stake in Anima, this is set to increase the bank's ownership to 89.949% upon completion of the offer, it said.
BPM said the provisional results of the offer indicate the condition it had set of getting acceptances of at least two thirds of Anima's share capital was fulfilled. Final results of the offer are due to be published later this week, the bank said.
The bank launched its bid to take full ownership of Anima in November and it raised the offer price in February, valuing the asset manager as a whole at about 2.3 billion euros ($2.52 billion). Since then, BPM itself became the target of an unsolicited takeover approach from larger rival UniCredit.
BPM's bid suffered a setback when the European Central Bank issued a negative view on the application of the so-called Danish Compromise rules, which allow acquisitions of asset managers by banks to be carried out through insurance subsidiaries to consume less capital. However, the bank decided to press ahead with the offer, saying the deal is set to play a key role in its strategic plan to 2027.
The offer period ran from March 17 to Friday.
Write to Adria Calatayud at adria.calatayud@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
April 07, 2025 01:35 ET (05:35 GMT)
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