Italian Banks: Milan tour feedback & M&A scenarios - resuming coverage on Banco BPM with Neutral

Research evidence excerpt

J P M O R G A N

Europe Equity Research

16 September 2026

Italian Banks

Milan tour feedback & M&A scenarios - resuming

coverage on Banco BPM with Neutral

We recently organised a financials tour to Milan. We met with UniCredit (CEO and

CFO), Intesa Sanpaolo (CFO), Banco BPM (CFO), Unipol (CEO) and Fineco

(CEO). The message was reassuring on revenue trends in Q3 with a continuation

of the strong commercial momentum and resilient client activity despite the

August seasonality. However, the main focus remains on M&A. UCG is mainly

focused on CBK governance and implementing the strategy, with significant

potential for market share gain in Italy from the M&A disruption. BAMI viewed

MPS’s unsolicited bid as complex and lacking a premium, while commenting that

a well-structured Credit Agricole deal could create value.

We estimate that Cred Ag could only offer up to a 10% premium in a takeover

scenario, but a reverse scenario with Cred Ag taking a larger stake could be

accretive, especially for BAMI shareholders, but the challenge is that any stake

increase would require government approval. We resume coverage on Banco BPM

with Neutral - The bank has an attractive client base in Northern Italy with valuable

assets such as Anima, and management is executing well with solid operating

performance. However, the stock already trades at a 16% premium to the sector and

20% premium to UCG, and valuation multiples already largely reflect franchise

quality in our view. While we see a modest catalyst from higher payouts, we also

see other banks including UCG also offering attractive yields trading at cheaper

multiples. Within Italian banks, we continue to prefer UCG (OW) with attractive

risk reward, strong profitability and attractive yield with upside to consensus

expectations and undiscounted CBK synergies. Note that we are restricted on

Intesa Sanpaolo and Unipol.

UniCredit focused on execution: UniCredit reiterated that keeping the

entities separate with 50% stake is best for execution & delivery of synergies

as well as capital. UCG highlighted its execution track record and reaffirmed

€1.4bn cost synergies by 2030, with 40% from non-HR costs and only <30%

…