Unicredit/Fastweb Madness of crowds

Italy’s Unicredit looks to have thrown caution entirely to the winds in its placing of E220m of shares in Fastweb, a E3.3bn broadband operator. It also looks to have paid the price. Even by the often wacky standards of block trades, this was an unusually bold transaction. Unicredit stood to make almost no money even if it went well. The bank bought the shares for E44.40 each from Silvio Scaglia, Fastweb’s founder and largest shareholder, and tried passing them on at just E44.60. The best case o...