For months Italian finance has been gripped by the €16bn ($18bn) takeover by Monte dei Paschi di Siena (MPS), the world's oldest surviving lender, of Mediobanca, an investment bank which also happens to own a 13% stake in Generali, a giant insurer. Completed last September, it was the biggest European banking merger in years, and one of the biggest deals in any industry on the old continent. It involved the abrupt sacking of MPS's boss by the board in April and his rapid reinstatement by shareholders.

数月来，意大利金融界一直围绕锡耶纳牧山银行（MPS，全球现存最古老的银行）对Mediobanca投资银行的160亿欧元（合180亿美元）收购案展开激烈讨论。Mediobanca本身还持有大型保险公司忠利集团13%的股份。 该收购于去年9月完成，是欧洲多年来规模最大的银行并购案，也是欧洲大陆各行业中最大的交易之一。 这一过程中还出现了戏剧性事件：MPS的董事会于4月突然解雇了该行行长，随后股东又迅速让其复职。

If that was not dramatic enough, on June 7th Banco BPM, Italy's fourth-largest lender, approached MPS's directors proposing a tie-up that would create a heavyweight with a roughly €50bn market capitalisation. The next day Carlo Messina, boss of Intesa Sanpaolo, Italy's biggest domestic lender, dismissed BPM's offer as an inconsequential "love letter" and launched a rival and, he claimed, less frivolous €31bn bid for MPS. The result of that deal would be a behemoth worth about €130bn.

如果说这还不够戏剧化，那么到了6月7日，意大利第四大银行Banco BPM接触了MPS的董事，提议进行合并，以打造一家市值约500亿欧元的重量级银行。 次日，意大利国内最大银行联合圣保罗银行的行长卡洛·梅西纳将BPM的提议斥为一封无关紧要的“情书”，并提出了一个竞争性的、据他称不那么轻率的方案：以310亿欧元竞购MPS。 该交易若达成，将催生出一个市值约1300亿欧元的金融巨头。

Intesa is offering MPS's owners 16 newly issued shares of its own for every ten in MPS, plus €1 per share on top of that. That represents a premium of 12.5% on MPS's closing share price at the end of last week. Intesa has called a shareholders' meeting for September 10th to approve the necessary issuance of shares. If both banks' shareholders go for it, the deal would create the euro zone's second-biggest lender by market value after Santander of Spain.

联合圣保罗银行向MPS股东提出的条件是：股东每持有10股MPS股票，即可获得16股联合圣保罗银行新发行的股票，此外每股还可额外获得1欧元现金。 这相当于较上周五MPS的收盘价溢价12.5%。 联合圣保罗银行已定于9月10日召开股东大会，以批准必要的股票发行。 如果两家银行的股东都批准，该交易将打造出欧元区市值仅次于西班牙桑坦德银行的第二大银行。

To allay competition authorities' worries, Intesa has also struck a deal with Unipol, an insurer that has the biggest holding in another large Italian lender, BPER, to divvy up MPS's retail business. Intesa would keep only 625 of its target's 1,260 branches. The brand and many of MPS's central operations would go to BPER, creating Italy's third-biggest banking group.

为打消竞争监管机构的顾虑，联合圣保罗银行还与保险公司Unipol达成协议，拆分MPS的零售业务。Unipol持有另一家意大利大型银行BPER的最大股份。 联合圣保罗银行将只保留其收购目标1260家分行中的625家。 MPS的品牌及许多核心业务将归于BPER，从而创建意大利第三大银行集团。

That might satisfy Italy's trustbusters. Giorgia Meloni's conservative—and nationalist—government would certainly prefer it to Banco BPM's offer. Crédit Agricole, a French bank, holds a stake of 20% in BPM. Politicians in Rome sometimes cheer on the equally drama-filled pursuit of Germany's Commerzbank by Unicredit, Italy's largest lender by market value. They may prove less enthusiastic about letting foreigners—and especially the French, who have already swallowed much of Italy's once proud fashion industry—grab a bigger slice of Italian finance.

这可能令意大利的反垄断机构感到满意。 焦尔吉娅·梅洛尼领导的保守派——同时也是民族主义——政府无疑会更倾向于这一方案，而非Banco BPM的提议。 法国银行法国农业信贷银行持有BPM 20%的股份。 罗马的政界人士有时会为意大利市值最大银行裕信银行同样充满戏剧性地竞购德国商业银行而叫好。 但让外国人（尤其是法国人）在意大利金融业分得更大一杯羹，他们可能就没那么热衷了，毕竟法国人已经吞下了意大利曾经引以为傲的时尚产业的很大一部分。