Mergers and acquisitions evaluation methods applied to a real case study in the banking sector

Considering the recent crisis due to the Covid-19 widespread and a context more dynamics than ever. The banks need to struggle with the crisis consolidating their market position. Then, at a glance the Italian banking scenario follows the consolidation process for a lot of years, reaching the current scenario composed by a few important banks and other small actors. The consolidation process is based on a lot of operations of Mergers and Acquisitions made by the Italian banks. The goal of the thesis is to show and understand which are the main drivers of these decisions, looking at how the banks make their evaluation through quantitative and qualitative methods. In particular, to describe it, it will use a real case. The case discussed represents perfectly the importance of the evaluation methods, because it was based only on the evaluation without considering private information. Therefore, the second part is focused on the real value creation of the processes. It gives the lecture a critical point of view that can enhance discussions about the real meaning of the processes. Using a regression made on the main ratios and analysing how they impact the number of branches can affect the value of these ratios. The ratios selected are Common Equity Tier 1 and Market Capitalization, two of the most discussed and the most used ratios able to summarize different sides of the banks. Then the main research question of the second part is trying to estimate if the macroeconomic scenario is the real value-driven of the Mergers and Acquisitions operations instead of a real value creation criteria.