MILANO (Reuters) - Italy's Delfin, the holding of the Del Vecchio family, raised its stake in Banca Monte dei Paschi to 9.78% from 3.5%, making it the bank's largest private investor behind the Treasury, a filing from market watchdog Consob showed on Thursday.
Delfin, the largest shareholder in EssilorLuxottica, bought its previous share when Italy sold 15% of bailed-out bank Monte dei Paschi (MPS) in November.
At that time Italian bank Banco BPM also took a 5% stake, fund manager Anima Holding bought a 3% stake and Italian businessman Francesco Gaetano Caltagirone took a 3.5% stake.
Banco BPM, Italy's third-largest bank and the Italian Treasury's preferred option as a merger partner for MPS, said at that time it had no plans to cross the 9.9% ownership threshold in MPS which would require European Central Bank clearance.
Italy stills holds a 11.7% stake in MPS.
(Reporting by Elisa Anzolin and Alessia Pé, editing by Alvise Armellini and Elaine Hardcastle)