Tajani is also national secretary of Forza Italia, the party founded by the late Silvio Berlusconi. Silvio’s heirs enjoy a close business relationship with UniCredit, choosing it, for example, to lead a €3.4 billion financing round that could fund a tie-up between their media empire and German broadcaster ProSiebenSat.1.
Supreme arbiters and white knights
The tension between the two junior coalition partners puts Meloni in an ideal position to arbitrate. But her own position remains a mystery.
Publicly, the prime minister has echoed Salvini’s concerns, also hinting at the use of the golden power. But counter-narratives abound: Some Italian media, for instance, have speculated, in extremely veiled terms, that Meloni herself encouraged UniCredit’s move — either to strengthen BPM against a possible foreign takeover, or even to undermine her coalition partner.
A further mystery, so far at least, is the role of construction tycoon Francesco Caltagirone, a canny strategist and ally of the premier, and of Delfin, the holding company controlled by the heirs of Leonardo Del Vecchio, the late founder of eyewear group Luxottica. Those two both took blocks of MPS shares in last month’s placement — a deal on which the government dispensed with its usual international advisers.
And in a crowning irony, for a deal dominated by factionalism within Europe’s most nativist, sovereigntist government, reports suggest Meloni is even willing to allow a foreign bank to act as a ‘white knight’ to derail UniCredit.
Days after UniCredit’s bid, French giant Crédit Agricole secured the rights to raise its own stake in BPM to 15.1 percent from 9.9 percent. It also asked for European Central Bank’s permission to raise it further to 19.99 percent.