Over its long and eventful history, Italy’s storied Monte dei Paschi di Siena had seemingly been through it all. Then the Americans came calling.
The world’s oldest bank, MPS was founded in 1472—the tail end of the early Renaissance, a time when financial recordkeeping was still conducted in Roman numerals. Since then, the bank has survived plagues and outside invasions, economic booms and busts, periods when the bank’s management seemed incapable of making a mistake, and times when their every move seemed designed to sink the business.
For much of the last 15 years, it’s been rough going for an institution that, until recently, was Italy’s third-largest bank despite being located 300 kilometers (185 miles) from the country’s financial capital, Milan.
MPS went into a downward spiral not long after it embarked on an ill-fated €9 billion acquisition of rival Banca Antonveneta just as the 2007-2008 financial crisis was unfolding. A risky bet on derivatives and a mountain of under-performing loans didn’t help either. The MPS share price bombed from a peak of more than €11,000 per share in 2007 to €1.15 on Tuesday afternoon—a decline of, well, let’s call it 100%. The Italian state now holds a 66% sake in the loss-making bank after keeping it afloat with €8 billion in bailouts over the span of a decade.
Over the last few months, reports in the Italian press identified a few American names inquiring about a deal for MPS, including Lone Star Capital. A Lone Star spokeswoman declined to comment on matter.
But the most intriguing reports of outside interest in MPS centered around a mysterious U.S. group led by Norm Dicks, a retired 18-term congressman from Washington State who, while in the nation’s capital, was best known as “Mr. Boeing” for his repeated and forceful advocacy for the aerospace giant, which was headquartered in Dicks’ district for most of his tenure.
According to a recent Bloomberg report, that was later confirmed by the Italian media, Dicks is heading up a group looking to raise €4 billion to transform the down-on-its-luck lender into a banking power with broad appeal. The plan appears to revolve around leveraging “the cachet” of “the world’s oldest bank to build a business with Italians abroad,” Bloomberg reported.
In an emailed statement, Dicks told Fortune he is “not involved” in a bid for MPS. When asked to elaborate if he had ever been involved in the past, he declined to discuss the matter further. A source at the Italian Treasury told Fortune that Dicks’ name did in fact emerge as recently as November of last year in connection with a bid for MPS involving a large American investor group. The source added that Treasury officials were unfamiliar with Dicks’ background.
Desperate to find a buyer
An offer—any offer—from deep-pocketed bidders would seemingly be a no-brainer for the Italian Treasury. It’s an open secret that Treasury officials see their shares in MPS as a burden; they’ve been shopping their stake in the bank for years. There have been multiple reports the Treasury is seeking an MPS tie-up with rival Unicredit, Italy’s second-largest bank. Unicredit has so far resisted engaging in any serious deal talks, however.
What’s puzzling Italians is why there’s now this apparent flurry of foreign interest in MPS, which was founded as a “mutual aid society” for Tuscan shepherds in the 15th Century.
An MPS spokeswoman told Fortune the bank only learned of Dicks following the various media reports about his group’s alleged interest in the bank. She adds the bank hasn’t been contacted by Dicks, or by anyone representing him. That stands to reason: any potential buyer would have to first get the green-light from the Italian government and Treasury to make a deal work. In that way, the bank wouldn’t necessarily be the first group informed should a serious offer materialize.
According to Bloomberg, Dicks’ representatives first approached then-Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte about the deal late last year, and were rebuffed.
Any interested group would need to go through the new Italian government led by Mario Draghi, no stranger to the banking world after a high-profile eight-year tenure as the head of the European Central Bank. In the 1990s, Draghi was director-general at the Italian Treasury, the same entity that will ultimately evaluate any offer, should their be one, for MPS.
The one-time pride of Siena
The fate of MPS is a near-sacred topic in the Tuscan town of Siena, home to 55,000 residents and MPS’ home base. For generations, the MPS Foundation was like a wealthy godfather to the town, sponsoring everything from the city’s famed Palio horse race (the race is a tradition nearly as old as the bank) to summer concerts, school drama programs, and youth football teams.
According to Tommasso Di Tanno, a former chair of MPS’ Board of Auditors who now teaches tax law at Milan’s Bocconi University, the bank’s staff and the residents of Siena recognize that their beloved bank needs saving.
But the Americans?, he wonders.
“Italy has a long history of trying to block foreign participation in the country’s banking sector,” Di Tanno said. “Despite that, it has happened in a few cases and for the most part, nothing bad happened. But that was always with other European banks. MPS has always seen itself as more Sienese than Tuscan or Italian or European.”
“American ownership might be a tough sell,” he added.
Ruggero Bertelli, a longtime Siena resident and a banking professor at the hometown University of Siena, told Fortune the bank’s roots are a huge deal. He said many locals shudder at the experience of UBI Banca, a second-tier Italian bank based outside Milan, which was acquired starting in 2019 by Banca Intesa, Italy’s largest bank, and is slowly disappearing from view, town by town, square by square.
“Whoever eventually takes over Monte dei Paschi could sway a lot of locals just by stating, ‘We recognize the bank’s rich history, and we want to maintain the name and the traditions. We want the bank to preserve its identity,’” Bertelli said. “If they do that, I don’t think it’ll matter where they come from.”
Correction and update, April 1, 2021: This post has been updated to clarify that Italy holds a 66% stake in Monte dei Paschi di Siena. Also, in a previous version, BlackRock was erroneously named as a potential bidder. That reference has been removed, and corrected.