Then on 8 November 2007 Santander announced that it had received and accepted an offer of €9 billion for Antonveneta from Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena (BMPS). However, Interbanca was excluded from the sale, which was sold to GE Financial instead in March 2008. The sale of Antonveneta was completed on 30 May 2008. According to news report at that time, the price, in terms of price per branch, was in line with the historic price of similar deal at that time, such as the sale of branches from Banca Intesa to Crédit Agricole. However, after BMPS was bailed out by the government a few years later, the takeover deal was described as "draining [BMPS'] cash reserves just as markets were peaking. The deal, which should have raised alarms among regulators, was approved by the Bank of Italy…" by a Bloomberg Opinion columnist, Elisa Martinuzzi.