Business 21 August 2026

Monte dei Paschi is bidding for two banks at once, and the tab comes to €34bn

The board of the world's oldest surviving bank approved two simultaneous all-share exchange offers: €25.3bn for Banco BPM and €8.72bn for Banca Generali. The acceptance window should open in December, with completion targeted for mid-February 2027.

The oldest bank still trading anywhere in the world has decided not to wait to be bought. The board of Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena approved, by majority, two voluntary and parallel public exchange offers: one for all the ordinary shares of Banco BPM, the other for all the ordinary shares of Banca Generali. Together they are worth roughly €34bn, and they are settled entirely in shares.

The terms. For Banco BPM, the exchange ratio is 1.567 new MPS shares per Banco BPM share, implying €16.729 a share and a total consideration of about €25.3bn. For Banca Generali it is 6.958 new shares each, carrying a 10% premium, for roughly €8.72bn.

There is a reason for the hurry. MPS is itself the target of an offer from Intesa Sanpaolo, and this double move is chief executive Luigi Lovaglio’s industrial answer to it: rather than be acquired, acquire. The same board also signed off an extraordinary €4bn distribution to shareholders, which is rarely a neutral gesture in the middle of a fight like this one.

The timetable

Acceptances are expected to open in the first half of December 2026 and close in the first half of February 2027, subject to regulatory clearances and to Consob approving the offer documents. If both go through in full, and factoring in the merger of Mediobanca into MPS, current Monte dei Paschi shareholders would hold about 50.1% of the combined group, Banco BPM shareholders 37.2% and Banca Generali shareholders 12.7%. Pre-tax synergies are put at around €2.6bn a year at full run-rate.

Watched from Lisbon, this is the latest chapter of an Italian banking consolidation that has been running for two years and has become the readiest gauge of European appetite for bank mergers. Worth reading alongside how the year has gone in the markets — none of this gets decided in Siena alone.

By Beatriz Mota

Image: . Ray in Manila / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0)

Business 21 August 2026

Markets tracker: gold, the Fed, oil and stocks

Our running tracker of the markets that move savings in Portugal — gold, Fed and ECB decisions, oil and stocks. Updated whenever there is news.

This is our running tracker of the markets that move savings in Portugal. Instead of a fresh article for every swing, we update this page whenever something matters: gold, Federal Reserve and European Central Bank decisions, oil and the main stock indices. For the background on the Portuguese economy, see our mid-year review. Official data is at the Bank of Portugal.

Tugadaily bar chart comparing the rise in Portuguese imports, the goods deficit and exports in the first half of 2026

Business 20 August 2026

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Bar chart showing what foreign-capital companies represent in Portugal: 46% of exports, 31% of turnover, 22% of employment and 3% of companies

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Business 19 August 2026

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Business 18 August 2026

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Tugadaily bar chart of gross monthly pay per worker in Portugal: €1,835 total in Q2 2026, €1,342 base pay in June 2026 and €1,278 in June 2025

Business 17 August 2026

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Business 16 August 2026

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Tugadaily chart with three bars for diesel: a ten-cent rise from markets, two cents absorbed by the ISP discount, and a real rise of eight cents on 17 August 2026

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Business 15 August 2026

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Business 14 August 2026

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Cars stacked in a scrapyard awaiting shredding, with fluid collection drums in the foreground

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Business 11 August 2026

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