European markets are set to open higher on Monday amid a slew of corporate news, and despite an anti-immigration party winning an election in euro zone country Slovenia over the weekend.

The Italian FTSE MIB leads the charge, set to open 234 points higher at 22,323. The German DAX is seen up 80 points at 12,777 while the U.K. FTSE is anticipated to begin the week 36 points in the green at 7,729. The French CAC is seen 30 points higher at 5,487.

Italy’s UniCredit is plotting a merger with French competitor Societe Generale, the Financial Times has reported. No formal approach has get been made, but UniCredit’s French Chief Executive Jean-Pierre Mustier has been pushing the idea for several months, according to the FT’s sources.

Meanwhile in the U.K., Clydesdale and Yorkshire Bank (CYBG) said on Sunday that it had upped its bid for challenger bank Virgin Money. The deal would create the U.K.’s sixth largest lender. The takeover panel deadline for the deal is 5:00 p.m. BST on Monday afternoon.

The French government is considering the sale of all or part of its 14.3 percent stake in Air France-KLM, Reuters has reported, citing a report from French newspaper Les Echos. France has received interest from AccorHotels. This is not the first time the hotels group has shown an interest in Air France-KLM.

In European Union member Slovenia, preliminary results have shown that an anti-immigration party has won a parliamentary election which took place on Sunday. The anti-establishment, center-left Slovenian Democratic Party took 25 percent of the vote.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel spoke about the euro zone in a newspaper interview published on Sunday, in which she supported some of French counterpart Emmanuel Macron‘s calls for more solidarity within the monetary union. The French government said on Sunday that the show of unity was a “positive move.”

But in the same interview Merkel also ruled out debt relief for Italy, saying that unity within the euro zone did not mean that it should become a debt-sharing bloc.

Asian stocks were trading higher on Monday, tailing Friday’s gains by U.S. markets on stronger-than-expected jobs report and shrugging off concerns about threats to world trade.

Source: cnbc
European markets set for higher open, corporate news in focus