Banca Intesa's shareholders gave their blessing on Friday to the Italian bank's merger with Sanpaolo IMI, which will create a European bank giant worth about 70 billion euros ($92.67 billion), according to Reuters. The all-share multi-billion-euro deal, which is expected to also win the approval of Sanpaolo's investors later on Friday, will form Europe's sixth-largest bank by market value in one of the world's largest bank mergers. There will be 5,200 layoffs after the merger, 2,800 of them at Sanpaolo and 2,400 at Intesa, the banks said on Friday after reaching an agreement with unions. Analysts say the figure represents about 6 percent of the banks' combined workforce. "The data is in line with estimated personnel cost savings of 360 million euros they had announced," said a bank analyst. The two banks will hire one new employee for each two voluntary redundancies at branches, but not at central offices. Analysts say they expect the job cuts to affect only Italy as there are no major overlaps between the two banks abroad. Spanish bank Santander, which has said Intesa's offer of 3,115 shares for each Sanpaolo share undervalues the Turin-based bank and rejected the deal at an October board meeting, said on Thursday it will not stand in the merger's way. It registered its 8.4 percent stake in Sanpaolo at the shareholder meeting in Turin and is expected to abstain. Under Italian corporate governance rules, a merger is approved if two thirds of registered shareholders vote in its favour. Intesa Chief Executive Corrado Passera told the shareholders' meeting Intesa was looking to buy back from France's Credit Agricole a 65 percent sake in fund manager Nextra and then merge its asset management business with Sanpaolo's. Passera said the option of a partnership with Credit Agricole, its single largest shareholder with a nearly 18 percent sake, was still open.
