Tiny white knights

Is another diminutive white knight about to surface in Italy? We’ve already had little Banca Popolare Italiana (formerly Lodi) trying to buy Antonveneta from under ABN Amro’s nose. Now a small insurer called Unipol may take on Spain’s BBVA for the hand of Banca Nazionale del Lavoro. Unipol hasn’t yet said whether it will bid for BNL. But it’s hard to see how it could do so with a straight face. The Roman bank would cost it somewhere in the region of E8.5bn. That’s over three times it own market...