From the depths of a crisis, the long-awaited wave of European bank M&A seems to have finally emerged.
Intesa Sanpaolo’s €5 billion deal for Italian rival UBI Banca, announced in February, is Europe’s biggest bank acquisition in a decade. CaixaBank’s merger with Bankia, which is almost as large, came only a few months later. Other deals are in the works.
It is better late than never.
For years M&A advisers and some bank chief executives have insisted that Europe’s banks need to reduce capacity and competition to improve their dire profitability. What’s different in 2020 is that shareholders – and the industry’s most important financial supervisor – now recognize the need for solutions that are radical enough to get the sector out of the rut in which it finds itself.
It is difficult to see how many banks in Europe will be able to cover their cost of equity on a standalone basis
Weaker firms must look to mergers to shore up their broken business models. Covid-19 and the policy response to it have given stronger banks the opportunity, even the obligation, to look at acquisitions.
The
