Veto on UniCredit and MPS last resort says Giorgetti

(ANSA) - ROME, MAR 12 - The government's wielding its so-called golden power and vetoing takeover bids by UniCredit for Banco BPM and Monte dei Paschi di Siena (MPS) for Mediobanca would be a last resort, Economy Minister Giancarlo Giorgetti told the House Wednesday.
    UniCredit, Italy's second biggest bank after Intesa Sanpaolo, launched its bid for the country's third biggest lender Banco BPM late last year, and was followed by MPS, the sixth-biggest, launching a bid for premier merchant bank Mediobanca, the country's eighth-biggest financial institution.
    Giorgetti said at question time that the government's assessments on the exercise of the golden power in the UniCredit and MPS cases "will obviously be carried out in accordance with the provisions of the law and therefore in a proportionate, reasonable manner and in compliance with the principle of non-discrimination, remembering that each decision is taken following a thorough investigation involving the companies involved and that even in the case of final determinations concerning the exercise of the powers, the range of possible solutions, which sees the veto on the operations only as a last resort, allows for the adoption of monitoring and prescriptive measures fully suited to reconciling the interests at stake".
    (ANSA).