Banking analysts assess the possibility of a banking merger in Italy.
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MILAN, Italy — European policymakers have longed for bigger banks across the continent.
And Italy might be about to give them their wish with a bumper round of M&A, according to analysts.
Years after a sovereign debt crisis in the region and a government rescue for Banca Monte dei Paschi (BMPS) that saved it from collapse, many are looking at Italy’s banking sector with fresh eyes.
“If you assess individual banks in Italy, it’s difficult not to believe that something will happen, I would say, over the next 12 months or so,” Antonio Reale, co-head of European banks at Bank of America, told CNBC.
Reale highlighted that BMPS had been rehabilitated and needed re-privatization, he also said UniCredit is now sitting on a “relatively large stack of excess of capital,” and more broadly that the Italian government has a new industrial agenda.
UniCredit, in particular, continues to surprise markets with some stellar quarterly profit beats. It earned 8.6 billion euros last year (up 54% year-on-year), pleasing investors via share buybacks and dividends.
Meanwhile, BMPS, which was saved in 2017 for 4 billion euros, has to eventually be out back into private hands under an agreement with European regulators and the Italian government. Speaking in March, Italy’s Economy Minister Giancarlo Giorgetti said “there is a specific commitment” with the European Commission on the divestment of the government stake on BMPS.
“In general, we see room for consolidation in markets such as Italy, Spain and Germany,” Nicola De Caro, senior vice president at Morningstar, told CNBC via email, adding that “domestic consolidation is more likely than European cross-border mergers due to some structural impediments.”
He added that despite recent consolidation in Italian banking, involving Intesa-Ubi, BPER-Carige and Banco-Bpm, “there is still a significant number of banks and fragmentation at the medium sized level.”
“UniCredit, BMPS and some medium sized banks are likely to play a role in the potential future consolidation of the banking sector in Italy,” De Caro added.
Speaking to CNBC in July, UniCredit CEO Andrea Orcel indicated that at current prices, he did not see any potential for deals in Italy, but said he is open to that possibility if market conditions were to change.
“In spite our performance, we still trade at a discount to the sector […] so if I were to do those acquisitions, I would need to go to my shareholders and say this is strategic, but actually I am going to dilute your returns and I am not going to do that,” he said.
“But if it changes, we are here,” he added.
Paola Sabbione, an analyst at Barclays, believes there would be a high bar for Italian banking M&A if it does occur.
“Monte dei Paschi is looking for a partner, UniCredit is looking for possible targets. Hence from these banks, in theory several combinations could arise. However, no bank is in urgent need,” she told CNBC via email.
European officials have been making more and more comments about the need for bigger banks. French President Emmanuel Macron, for example, said in May in an interview with Bloomberg that Europe’s banking sector needs greater consolidation. However, there’s still some skepticism about supposed mega deals. In Spain, for instance, the government opposed BBVA’s bid for Sabadell in May.
“Europe needs bigger, stronger and more profitable banks. That’s undeniable,” Reale from Bank of America said, adding that there are differences between Spain and Italy.
“Spain has come a long way. We’ve seen a big wave of consolidation happen[ing] right after the Global Financial Crisis and continued in recent years, with a number of excess capacity that’s exited the market one way or the other. Italy is a lot more fragmented in terms of banking markets,” he added.
‘The Big Money Show’ co-hosts discuss buy now, pay later spending options and the impact it will now have on your credit score.
Small, everyday purchases like a meal from DoorDash are now able to be financed through eat now, pay later options — a practice that some experts deem “predatory.”
“You’ve got to have enough sense to not follow the urge to finance a taco, okay? You have got to be an adult,” career coach Ken Coleman told “The Big Money Show,” Wednesday.
“This is predatory, and it’s going to get a lot of people in deep trouble.”
DoorDash and Klarna are now partnering up to extend buy now, pay later options to consumers. (Reuters, Getty / Getty Images)
Financial wellness experts are continuously sounding the alarm to cash-strapped consumers, warning them of the devastating impact this financial strategy could have on their credit score as some lenders will begin reporting those loans to credit agencies.
Consumers may risk getting hit with late fees and interest rates, similar to credit cards.
“So your sandwich might show up on your FICO score, especially if you pay for it late,” FOX Business’ Jackie DeAngelis explained.
Major players like Affirm, Afterpay, and Klarna have risen to prominence at a time when Americans continue to grapple with persisting inflation, high interest rates and student loan payments, which resumed in October 2023 after a pause due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Ramsey Solutions personal finance expert and ‘The Ramsey Show’ co-host George Kamel discusses the ‘buy now, pay later’ craze and the trend that celebrates the financial benefits of being childless.
“The Big Money Show” co-host Taylor Riggs offered a different perspective, suggesting that company CEOs have a “duty” to attract as many customers as they want.
“Unfortunately for me, this always comes down to financial literacy — which I know is so much in your heart about training people to save now by later,” she told Coleman, who regularly offers financial advice to callers on “The Ramsey Show.”
Coleman continued to come to the defense of financially “desperate” consumers, arguing that companies are targeting “immature” customers.
“I’m for American businesses being able to do whatever they want to do under the law. That’s fine. But let’s still call it what it is: it’s predatory, and they know who their customers are,” Coleman concluded, “And I’m telling you, they’re talking about weak-minded, immature, desperate people.”
FOX Business’ Daniella Genovese contributed to this report.
The Exchange Square Complex, which houses the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, on Feb. 26, 2025.
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BEIJING — Chinese companies are jumping at a window of opportunity to go public in Hong Kong as global investors start to return to the region, following the news of DeepSeek’s artificial intelligence breakthrough in late January.
It’s a level of excitement that has not been felt for more than three years, despite the overhang of U.S. trade tensions. Initial public offerings are a lucrative way for early investors in startups to exit and reap a return.
“Everyone is working so perfectly together. IPO candidates, the investor and the regulators,” said George Chan, global IPO leader at EY. “All these three parties are working so perfectly at this moment to actually cultivate a healthy Hong Kong IPO market.”
“The U.S. long-term fund has returned. It shows investors are getting more confident [about] China,” he said, adding that post-IPO performance has also been encouraging.
News of China-based DeepSeek’s claims to rival OpenAI’s ChatGPT in reasoning capabilities at a lower cost — despite U.S. restrictions on Chinese access to advanced chips for training AI models — hit global tech stocks in late January, while spurring a rally in China. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index surged to three-year highs.
Six initial public offerings in Hong Kong raised more than 1 billion Hong Kong dollars ($130 million) in the first quarter — a jump from just one listing of that size in the year-ago period — according to KPMG.
In all, the consultancy said, Hong Kong saw 15 IPOs in all of the first quarter which raised 17.7 billion HKD — the best start to a year since 2021.
There’s still a long way to go before recovering to that level. Hong Kong saw 32 IPOs in the first quarter of 2021 that raised a whopping 132.7 billion HKD, according to KPMG.
The Hong Kong stock exchange has adjusted its listing rules in the interim, including ones that support companies already listed in mainland China to offer shares in Hong Kong.
In addition to CATL, other companies listed in mainland China — Hengrui Pharmaceuticals, Mabwell, Haitian Flavoring and Food, Fortior Tech and Sanhua Intelligent Controls — are “actively seeking Hong Kong listings,” said Tiger Brokers, an underwriter of many Chinese companies’ IPOs in the U.S. and Hong Kong.
“Chinese regulators are encouraging companies to list in Hong Kong to broaden financing channels and support the outbound merger and acquisition needs of Chinese enterprises,” the firm said.
Still not out of the woods
Back in the summer of 2021, the fallout over Chinese ride-hailing company Didi’s IPO in the U.S. prompted both countries’ regulators to scrutinize what was then a wave of Chinese companies listing in New York.
The major issues have since been resolved and Beijing has clarified rules for Chinese companies wanting to list outside the mainland. But the Trump administration indicated in its “America First Investment Policy” that it could increase scrutiny on U.S. capital flowing to China, on top of heightened tariffs.
The U.S. and China have yet to indicate when their two leaders might meet in an attempt to forge a deal. A surge of interest in AI and tech are also not yet enough to speed up a recovery in China’s economy.
“At this point in time, all we can see is the good indicators,” EY’s Chan said. But “there could be one single incident happening which could pretty much reverse the trend.”
“Things tend to have a pattern,” he said. “If things can keep on for three months, four months, it will likely continue for the rest of the year.”
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent speaks to reporters outside the West Wing after doing a television interview on the North Lawn of the White House on March 13, 2025 in Washington, DC.
Andrew Harnik | Getty Images
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Wednesday the sell-off in the stock market is due more to a sharp pullback in the biggest technology stocks instead of the protectionist policies coming from the Trump administration.
“I’m trying to be Secretary of Treasury, not a market commentator. What I would point out is that especially the Nasdaq peaked on DeepSeek day so that’s a Mag 7 problem, not a MAGA problem,” Bessent said on Bloomberg TV Wednesday evening.
Bessent was referring to Chinese AI startup DeepSeek, whose new language models sparked a rout in U.S. technology stocks in late January. The emergence of DeepSeek’s highly competitive and potentially much cheaper models stoked doubts about the billions that the big U.S. tech companies are spending on AI.
The so-called Magnificent 7 stocks — Apple, Amazon, Tesla, Alphabet, Microsoft, Meta and Nvidia — started selling off drastically, pulling the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite into correction territory. The tech-heavy benchmark is down about 13% from its record high reached on December 16.
However, the secretary downplayed the impact from President Donald Trump’s steep tariffs, which caught many investors off guard and fueled fears of a re-acceleration in inflation, slower economic growth and even a recession. Many investors have blamed the tariff rollout for driving the S&P 500 briefly into correction territory from its record reached in late February. Wall Street defines a correction as a drop of 10% from a recent high.
S&P 500, YTD
Trump signed an aggressive “reciprocal tariff” policy at the White House Wednesday evening, slapping duties of at least 10% and even higher for some countries. The actions sparked a huge sell-off in the stock market overnight, with the S&P 500 futures declining nearly 4% and the blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average shedding 1,100 points. The losses will likely but the S&P 500 back into correction territory in Thursday’s session.
“It’s going to be fine if we put the best economic conditions in place,” Bessent said in a separate interview on Fox Wednesday evening. “If you go back and look, the stock market actually peaked on the [DeepSeek] Chinese AI announcement. So a lot of what we have seen has been just an idiosyncratic tech sell-off.”