The lender’s acquisition of a two-thirds stake in Jean-Marie Messier’s Paris-based advisory boutique shows how things have changed. Customers have a choice of advisers and the Italian bank needs a strategy that looks to other markets. M&A for Italian clients may still be its core business, but Wall Street rivals have been expanding in the country in recent years. The big prize for Mediobanca would be to capture some sizable French corporate clients and large-cap cross-border M&A work. Chris Hughes is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering deals.

Source: Washington Post April 11, 2019 13:37 UTC