BPI A friend in need

The fracas at Banca Popolare Italiana – under fire from all sides for the tactics it allegedly used to win rival Antonveneta – isn’t just limited to Italy. Deutsche Bank and Dresdner Bank are getting sucked into the maelstrom too. The two German banks bought minority stakes in companies controlled by BPI. These transactions are now reportedly being probed by prosecutors, to see whether they were designed to boost BPI’s balance sheet. It isn’t hard to see why the deals may have attracted the mag...