So maybe someone sees the logic in the London Stock Exchange (age 206) going full fat Italian, bringing in the oldest bank on the planet as a key shareholder to complement its recent deal to take over Borsa Italiana.
The Fondazione Monte dei Paschi di Siena, which controls 49 per cent of Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena (aged 535), was said by Reuters on Tuesday to have been approached about buying part of Nasdaq’s 31 per cent in the LSE.
“We’re waiting to receive the details to verify if we’re interested,” an unnamed source told the news agency.
MPS, as the bank is better known, has its headquarters in the Palazzo Salimeni in Siena, where it apparently hosts a magnificent collection of art priceless historical documents spanning the centuries of its existence.
Then again, maybe as part of an possible institutional placing every sizeable financial sector investor in Europe is being canvassed on Nasdaq’s unwanted piece of the LSE pie.
