The race to win control of  Italy’s Istituto Centrale delle Banche Popolari (Icbpi) , a bank specialising in payment services owned by domestic cooperative banks, has officially started, MF-Milano Finanza writes today telling that Icbpi’s shareholders have just appointed as advisors for the deal Mediobanca and Equita sim.
Icbpi Group had  a consolidated equity of 849.5 million euros (711.7 millions the holding company) at the end of 2013, an operative profit of 168.4 millionsi (117.8 millions the holding company) and a net profit of 73.2 millions (68.2 millions as for the holding). Non binding-bids for an enterprise value of  about 2-2.2 billion euros have been proposed by two groups of investors. One one hand US private equity operators Advent International and Bain Capital teamed together aiming to make the third deal together in this sector after having bought last year Scandinavian leader Nets (see here the press release) and after having bought the last 20% stake in Rbs WorldPay at the end of 2013 (see here the press release).
Shareholders in Icbpi are set to reap significant capital gains from the sale as the book value of the stakes is much lower than the above 2 billion euros valuation that Icbpi is said to be paid.
The news come as the Italian cabinet last January 21st scrapped the one-vote-per-investor rule for the cooperative or ‘popolari’ banks, a measure that analysts say would open the way to a wave of consolidation in the sector (see a previous post by BeBeez).
