MILAN, Oct 6 (Reuters) - Intesa Sanpaolo is prepared to look at bank mergers in Europe but considers the idea of a tie-up with domestic rival UniCredit “senseless”, the chairman of the lender’s supervisory board said on Tuesday. “When the conditions are right we will certainly assess external growth but in this regard tying up with or buying Italian banks makes no sense,” Giovanni Bazoli said on the sidelines of a conference. Bazoli said consolidation would be better at a European level, but added there was nothing on the table at present. He said the idea of merging Italy’s biggest retail bank with rival UniCredit had never been put to top management. Last week financial daily Il Sole 24 Ore said an investment bank had pitched the idea of a merger between Italy’s top two banks with the possible involvement of Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena. Reporting by Gianluca semeraro, writing by Stephen Jewkes
Intesa Sanpaolo has announced they are looking at bank mergers in Europe but not a tie-up with rival Unicredit, as we noted last week. The Italian lender is also considering an acquisition of the German banking group Commerzbank, which would create one of Europe's biggest banks.