Sanpaolo IMI S.p.A. was an Italian banking and insurance conglomerate, based in Turin. It employed about 44,000 people and had about 7 million customers.
On 24 August 2006, a merger with Banca Intesa was announced, which on 1 December 2006 was approved by the joint meetings of the shareholders of Banca Intesa and Sanpaolo IMI. On 2 January 2007, the merger went into effect, thereby creating Intesa Sanpaolo, now the largest Italian bank and one of the largest in the Eurozone.
The new banking company is based in Turin and is administered under the "two-tier model", with the presence of a Supervisory Board and a Board of Management. This was the first application of this model in a major Italian company.
History
Sanpaolo IMI was formed by many mergers of banks, which in 1998 Istituto Bancario San Paolo di Torino merged with Istituto Mobiliare Italiano.
In 2002, the group absorbed Cardine Banca, a short-lived holding company that consisted of Cassa di Risparmio in Bologna