Will they? Won’t they? This summer’s speculation that Italy’s fourth and fifth largest banks, Banco Popolare and UBI Banca, will decide to tie the knot and overtake Monte dei Paschi di Siena into third place in the national rankings just refuses to die.
“We believe a potential combination between UBI and Banco Popolare would be backed by a strong strategic rationale and would be relatively simple to finalise as both players are co-operative banks,” Elena Perini, an equities analyst at Dresdner Kleinwort in Milan, noted at the end of June.
