Italy's Banco BPM aims to launch its offer to buy the fund manager Anima Holding "from the second half of March", CEO Giuseppe Castagna told Il Sole 24 ore daily in an interview published on Tuesday.

UniCredit in late November swooped on Banco BPM, which has long been a natural takeover target for the bigger peer given its roots in Italy's wealthy Lombardy region, where UniCredit's market share is ...