By Gianluca Semeraro
MILAN (Reuters) -Alberto Nagel is poised to step down as chief executive of the Italian merchant bank Mediobanca on Thursday, after state-backed lender Banca Monte dei Paschi secured a majority stake, ending his 17-year tenure.
Nagel, 60, set out to steer the bank — founded to finance Italy’s post-war reconstruction — away from its role as a lynchpin of Italian capitalism at the centre of a web of cross‑shareholdings.
He expanded wealth management operations to complement the bank’s traditional corporate and investment banking (CIB) and consumer finance businesses, making targeted acquisitions in Italy and abroad.
Mediobanca’s directors will meet later on Thursday for the first time since MPS obtained a stake of more than 62% with its cash-and-share offer. They are expected to announce their plans to resign, effective October 28, allowing state-backed lender MPS to appoint a new board and chief executive, sources said.
The MPS takeover of its larger rival, launched in January and worth more than 16 billion euros ($19 billion), brings together the commercial banking operations of the Tuscan lender with the investment banking and wealth management businesses of Milan-based Mediobanca.
In recent years, Nagel came under fire from Mediobanca’s two leading shareholders — Italian tycoon Francesco Gaetano Caltagirone and Delfin, the holding company of late Ray-Ban billionaire Leonardo Del Vecchio.
They accused him of failing to grow the business adequately and of relying too heavily on the contribution from Italy’s leading insurer Generali, in which Mediobanca is the top shareholder with a 13% stake.
MPS — in which both Caltagirone and Delfin bought significant stakes last year — surprised investors early in 2025 by launching a bid for its bigger rival, part of a wave of consolidation in Italian banking.
The tender period ended on September 8 and reopened on September 16 running through Monday.
MPS has built a stake of 62.9% in Mediobanca and could exceed 80% shareholder take-up, making a merger of the two groups inevitable, Mediobanca General Manager Francesco Saverio Vinci said last week in a video message to staff.
MPS has said it would preserve the Mediobanca brand and run its operations separately by appointing a successor to Nagel whom is currently in the process of selecting.
The acquisition by MPS has the support of Italy’s government, which aims to create a stronger rival to market leaders Intesa Sanpaolo and UniCredit as a series of deals redraws the country’s banking map.
($1 = 0.8447 euros)
(Reporting by Gianluca Semeraro, editing by Keith Weir and Giselda Vagnoni)
