Italy

Banks are seeing light at the end of the tunnel as they emerge from major cost cutting exercises at the same time as economies around the world begin to emerge, erratically, from pandemic restrictions. Now the question is whether there will be enough capital markets business to go around.

Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena’s tier twos are see-sawing in the secondary market, as investors try and determine the fate of the bonds following merger interest from UniCredit.

Sports teams could be among the Covid-battered industries looking to tap the capital markets later this year and next, bankers believe, as Italy’s elite Juventus Football Club prepares for a €400m rights issue to repair its finances.

Eurizon, the asset management business owned by Intesa Sanpaolo, has hired Federica Calvetti from Deutsche Bank to lead its ESG and strategic activism team in Milan.

Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena’s capital instruments are at risk of being zeroed after UniCredit announced this week that it could buy the state-owned Italian lender on extremely favourable terms. Market participants are more optimistic on Monte’s senior debt, which would rally strongly if included in a merger.

Andrea Orcel is looking to clinch a deal for Unicredit to acquire parts of stricken Italian lender Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena (MPS) in the early part of September after revealing it was negotiating with the Italian government.

UniCredit has quickly junked Jean Pierre Mustier’s legacy and forged a new strategy based on greater accountability, but the newly unveiled corporate and investment bank retains plenty of the character of the old one, writes David Rothnie.

Barclays has promoted from within to fill the role of head of investment banking for continental Europe that has been vacant since Carlo Calabria left earlier this year to concentrate on a special purpose acquisition company.

Europe’s new generation of special purpose acquisition companies (Spacs) are starting to make deals to combine with unlisted companies, testing the region’s nascent market.

Banco BPM found less demand than expected for its inaugural social bond on Thursday, as market conditions soured after the Italian lender opened books.

Citi has hired a senior investment banker from UBS to take over as investment banking head for Italy from Leopoldo Attolico, who is moving into a vice-chairman role.

Credito Emiliano managed to attract a robust order book for its €750m seven year covered bond that was sold on Wednesday, following an extended marketing period that enabled price discovery. At the same time Coventry Building Society mandated leads for only the second UK covered bond in euros to be issued this year.