The enlarged group will, among other areas, offer private banking and wealth management. Private banking for wealthy clients, along with corporate and investment banking, will sit in a wholly-owned unlisted business of BMPS.

Italy’s Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena (BMPS) is taking full control of Milan-headquartered Mediobanca and will delist it while preserving its brand.

"The new group structure is aimed at achieving strategic and profitability objectives and at fully achieving industrial synergies so [as] to maximise value creation. This configuration is designed to enhance the distinctive expertise of Mediobanca and its professional resources, within a specialised operating model," BMPS said in a statement yesterday.

"Simultaneously, the corporate and investment banking and private banking activities for high-end clients will be transferred to a whollyowned, unlisted company of BMPS, which will retain the corporate name “Mediobanca SpA,” a brand of the highest value with a unique wealth of expertise and a synonym for excellence in advisory services to businesses and individuals," it said. 

The statement alluded to Mediobanca having a substantial private banking arm, including Monaco’s CMB. (In February 2008, Mediobanca acquired Unicredit’s private banking activities in Monaco through CMB. The deal followed the acquisition of ABN AMRO’s branch in the principality in November 2006.) MPS also operates in the private banking, wealth and family offices spaces.

A statement from Mediobanca said yesterday: “The board of directors of Mediobanca has acknowledged the resolutions adopted by the board of directors of Banca MPS and disclosed to the market today. Accordingly, it has resolved to start the activities aimed at the integration with BMPS through a merger by incorporation and the consequent delisting of Mediobanca, in accordance to the regulations governing related party transactions and the applicable legal requirements.”

From bailout to reprivatisation

BMPS – a bank tracing its origins to 1624 – was bailed out by the Italian government in 2017 and put back into the private sector in 2023 to 2024. In 2025, it acquired 86 per cent of Mediobanca, raising question marks over whether it made sense to leave Mediobanca listed with such reduced floating capital. 

In the six months to the end of 2025, Mediobanca reported earlier in February that it had achieved a pre-tax profit of €686 million ($812.9 million), falling 26 per cent on a year earlier. Within wealth management, fees slipped 1 per cent on a year ago, standing at €249 million in the latest six-month period, it said. The overall Mediobanca group had a Common Equity Tier 1 ratio of 16.4 per cent at the end of 2025.

Reports (Reuters, 17 February, others) said that the BMPS full-control move had created division within MPS, with directors led by representatives of investor Francesco Gaetano Caltagirone opposing full integration of Mediobanca.

BMPS said yesterday that it is going ahead with the delisting. Once that has taken place, Mediobanca will be merged into the group, and a new unlisted entity will be created to house the private and investment banking activities under the Mediobanca name.

On 10 February, BMPS said its gross operating profit for 2025 amounted to €2.653 billion. Excluding the contribution from the Mediobanca Group, gross operating profit was €2.19 billion, rising from €2.16 billion in the previous year. 

In 2023, this news service interviewed the CEO of CMB Monaco, part of Mediobanca, asking how it fits into the wider Mediobanca private banking and wealth story.