Banco Popolare Società Cooperativa was an Italian bank, formed in 2007 from the merger of Banco Popolare di Verona e Novara (BPVN) and Banca Popolare Italiana (BPI). The bank merged with Banca Popolare di Milano on 1 January 2017.
The bank was ranked fourth by total assets (among retail and commercial banks), according to Ricerche e Studi using 2015 data.[2] The bank was a cooperative partnership. However, Italian Law N°3/2015 required all Popular Banks (Banca Popolare) with total assets above €8 billion, to transform into società per azioni (company limited by shares). In 2016 it was announced that the bank would be merged with Banca Popolare di Milano. At the same time the new bank would be registered as S.p.A.
Banco Popolare was a component of FTSE MIB index of Borsa Italiana (Italian stock exchange).
The group had branches in 19 out of 20 regions of Italy, except in Abruzzo (the subsidiary Banca Caripe was sold in 2011). Moreover, the bank was absent in several provinces of Italy, such as South Tyrol (the equity investment in Südtiroler Sparkasse was sold in 2007), and the province of Sondrio, Lombardy. Moreover, the bank only presented in one out of eight provinces of Sardinia and one out of five provinces of Calabria (only in Reggio Calabria).
From 2002 to 2004 the group made multiple deals with insurer Cattolica Assicurazioni on Credito Bergamasco and other joint ventures.[4][5] The partnership with the insurer ended in 2007, which after the merger with BPI, the new banking group changed to partner with Fondiaria-Sai in bancassurance (Popolare Vita, ex-BPV Vita).
64% of the shareholders of the new bank were former shareholders of BPVN, with the rest being the former holders of BPI.[7] Banco Popolare also sold Banca Popolare di Mantova to Banca Popolare di Milano in 2008.
On 1 January 2011 the group sold Banca Caripe to Banca Tercas, the bank only section in Abruzzo. In the same year most of the subsidiaries were absorbed into the parent companies, but remained as a brand and as internal bank divisions and departments. The incorporation of Credito Bergamasco was completed in 2014. In 2015 Banca Italease was absorbed. It became the leasing division of the bank.[9]
In 2016 it was announced that the bank would be merged with Banca Popolare di Milano. The new bank would be ranked as the joint-third among the retail and commercial banks of Italy (both the proposed new bank and Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena had total assets of around €170 billion according to 2015 data). The bank also claimed that the new bank would be ranked as the third in terms of branches (above 8%) and more specifically the first in Lombardy (above 15.5% where BPMilano, BPMantova and BPL were located), the third in Veneto (above 9.5% where BPV was located) and the third in Piedmont (above 12.5% where BPN was located). As part of the deal Banco Popolare would also recapitalize €1 billion in order to increase its capital quality.[11] Both banks had below 1 P/B ratio (which Banco Popolare had a higher discount), making the share capital of the new bank roughly composed of 54% shareholders of Banco Popolare and 46% BPM.
As part of the merger and demutualization, Banco Popolare had set an exit price of €3.156 per share for shareholders who did not vote or against the merger in the extraordinary shareholders' meeting in October 2016, which was calculated by the mean of the share price of the previous six months,[12] although it was still above the market price at that time.
References
^"2016 Annual Report". Verona: Banco Popolare. 5 April 2017. Archived from the original(PDF) on December 4, 2017. Retrieved 4 December 2017.
