Mediobanca to sell Pirelli stake

ERJ staff report (BC)

By Lisa Jucca

Milan – Italian investment bank Mediobanca is ready to gradually exit its 4.6 percent stake in tiremaker Pirelli as well as other strategic holdings, a source with direct knowledge of the situation is reported by Lisa Jucca of Reuters to have said.

The Milan-based bank, which owns stakes in some of Italy's biggest companies, will present a new business plan to focus on its banking business and “break with years of meddling in Italy's top corporate developments”.

Shrinking returns amid a deep economic crisis at home have prompted the bank to rethink its corporate investment strategy.

The bank's 2013-2016 plan will call for retrenching its core investment banking operations and putting greater focus on its retail bank, a source of stable liquidity, as well as on its high-margin consumer finance division.

Apart from the Pirelli stake, Mediobanca's biggest financial holdings are a 13.2 percent stake in life insurer Generali, about 13.7 percent in Italian publisher RCS Mediagroup and 11.6 percent of Telco, the holding company which controls Telecom Italia.

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