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Italy’s UniCredit has launched a €10.1bn takeover bid for domestic rival Banco BPM, turning to its home market for consolidation after a hostile reception in Germany to its overtures for Commerzbank.
UniCredit on Monday said its all-stock offer valued each Banco BPM share at €6.66 and the deal, if agreed, would create Europe’s third-largest lender by market capitalisation.
The offer opens a new front for UniCredit chief executive Andrea Orcel’s ambition to create a European banking champion, and positions the lender as a key player in a potential consolidation of Italy’s banking market.
“The Italian banking sector, which is one of our two biggest markets, is potentially consolidating . . . We cannot remain absent from that move,” Orcel told analysts on a call on Monday.
But it also suggests a shift in UniCredit’s priorities.
The Italian lender shook the European banking sector earlier this year by rapidly building a stake in Commerzbank, Germany’s second-biggest lender. The move unleashed a firestorm in Germany, however, with politicians and unions hardening against the deal.
Orcel on Monday said UniCredit’s bid for BPM had no implications for its stake in Commerzbank, which he described as “an investment for now, we can sit on it for a while”.
But he acknowledged the political resistance was likely to delay any full-scale takeover of the German bank. “There will be no ability to move in the short term [for Commerzbank] and maybe there won’t be an ability to move at all.”
Orcel did not rule out a future move for the rest of Commerzbank, with the bank on Monday saying it “may either seek to go further if the conditions are right or to exit our investment and return the capital”.
UniCredit would already have integrated BPM by the time it closed any deal for Commerzbank, if such an agreement were ever to materialise, Orcel told analysts, adding: “We’re never going to integrate two banks at the same time.”
The acquisition of BPM, which is the largest operator in Italy’s wealthy northern regions, would elevate UniCredit to the status of Italy’s largest bank by market capitalisation ahead of Intesa Sanpaolo.
Italian officials had hoped BPM could spur domestic consolidation, potentially merging with Monte dei Paschi di Siena and BPER, to compete with UniCredit and Intesa Sanpaolo, the country’s largest bank. This month, BPM took a 5 per cent stake in MPS when the government offloaded part of its shareholding in the once-ailing lender.
The Italian government voiced concerns on Monday in the wake of UniCredit’s announcement. “I do not like bank concentrations,” deputy prime minister Matteo Salvini was quoted as saying by Ansa newswire.
Orcel, who made his name as an M&A banker, first attempted to take over BPM two years ago but the deal was derailed by a leak that pushed up the share price. In 2021 UniCredit walked away from a potential deal with the Italian government to take over MPS. Orcel said UniCredit now had “no ambition on MPS”.
BPM shares closed up 5.5 per cent in Milan while UniCredit dropped almost 5 per cent. Commerzbank shares fell more than 6 per cent in Frankfurt.
Analysts at Keefe, Bruyette & Woods said: “The offer seems attractive to [UniCredit] shareholders but not for [BPM] shareholders given the limited premium and already substantial synergies assumed.”
UniCredit’s offer represents a 0.5 per cent premium to Friday’s price but a premium of 14.6 per cent to the share price on November 6, the date on which BPM made an offer to buy asset manager Anima Holding for €1.6bn.
BPM did not have an immediate comment.
