# Unipol Wants to Stop Being an Insurer With a Bank Stake, and Bper Is How It Gets There > Half year profit of 1,06 billion euros and a deal with Intesa Sanpaolo have put the group at the centre of Italian banking consolidation. The plan is to take its Bper holding past 30 percent. - Source: Italian Insider - Canonical URL: https://italianinsider.net/en/article/unipol-bper-mps-financial-champion - Author: Giulia Bassani - Section: Business - Other edition: https://italianinsider.net/article/unipol-bper-mps-financial-champion - Published: 2026-08-12T17:00:00.000Z - Updated: 2026-08-12T17:00:00.000Z - Tags: Unipol, Bper, Monte dei Paschi, Banking --- Unipol is trying to become something other than a large insurance group. The strategy its management has set out is a financial player standing on two legs, one insurance and one banking, with Bper meant to become the main pillar of the second. The design came into focus with the first half results published last week, which showed net profit of 1,06 billion euros, up 42 percent year on year including the contribution of the associate Bper to 30 June. That confirmed the financial solidity of the group led by chairman Carlo Cimbri and chief executive Matteo Laterza, and the weight of the bank run by Gianni Franco Papa. The ambition is to sit closer to the centre of the new phase of Italian banking consolidation, using the agreement signed with Intesa Sanpaolo as part of the operation on Monte dei Paschi. Analysts at Barclays Research read that agreement as an attempt to turn the group into a new financial champion. The larger news came out of the results call: Cimbri intends to lean on the strongest banking asset he has, Bper, where Unipol is the largest shareholder with 19,9 percent, and to take that holding above 30 percent in the new financial entity that would emerge once the Monte dei Paschi assets are folded into Bper. Under the Intesa agreement, if the offer on Monte dei Paschi succeeds, Bper takes over and absorbs 635 of its branches. The point is not simply to help Bper grow on Monte dei Paschi assets. It is to use that growth to increase Unipol's own weight inside the bank. The money question is how, given the 3,5 billion euros needed for the Rocca Salimbeni assets in the first place. Laterza's answer is excess capital, which he says already puts Unipol on track to beat its business plan target and which the group already knows how to spend: on the acquisition of the Monte dei Paschi assets, alongside the 2,5 billion capital increase it hopes to complete by the end of the year. The possibility that Intesa Sanpaolo revises the terms of its offer, which Carlo Messina has ruled out in any case, does not worry them. The price Unipol pays is protected by a cap. Laterza put it precisely: the group will pay half the multiple that Intesa Sanpaolo pays for Monte dei Paschi, with a ceiling of 3,5 billion euros. Equita takes the same view of the logic, writing after the analyst call that the operation involving Monte dei Paschi and Bper still has significant room to create value. The first step is a new national banking champion, second in Italy, built by Bper acquiring the Monte dei Paschi assets, with a leading position in direct deposits, customer loans and branch numbers, and with industrial and territorial complementarity between the assets involved. If Unipol then takes its stake in the new entity past 30 percent, the change is deeper than that: the group stops being a large insurer with a strategic holding in a bank and becomes a financial conglomerate with growing exposure to banking. That is the managerial bet, and it carries execution risk, because Unipol has not yet had a clear answer from Bper. Papa called the Monte dei Paschi operation positive but stayed cautious, saying that if and when it goes through it will be a good deal for the bank because it will let it strengthen its position in Italy further. He noted Bper could get considerably bigger, pointing at a couple of million additional customers and calling it a further acceleration of the business. He also conceded that it is very difficult to assess the numbers of the operation beyond those released to the press. Bper does not yet know where the Monte dei Paschi branches are located, or how many people will be transferred. The strategy is clear. The execution is still entirely to be proved. --- Originally published by Italian Insider. Free to cite with attribution and a link to https://italianinsider.net/en/article/unipol-bper-mps-financial-champion.