UniCredit makes €10bn offer for Italian rival Banco BPM

Stay informed with free updates

Simply sign up to the European banks myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox.

Italy’s UniCredit has launched a €10bn takeover bid for its rival Banco BPM, in a deal that it said would create one of Europe’s biggest banks by market value.

UniCredit said on Monday that its all-stock offer valued Banco BPM’s shares at €6.66 and the deal, if agreed, would create Europe’s third-largest lender by market capitalisation.

It comes as talk of consolidation among Europe’s banks has begun to pick up, with policymakers in the region keen to encourage the emergence of larger domestic groups and multinational banks that can challenge US giants and fast-growing rivals in Asia.

UniCredit’s offer for its Italian rival comes after it also built up a position as the biggest investor in Commerzbank, the German lender. Commerzbank’s management has so far dismissed the approach. 

Andrea Orcel, a dealmaker who became UniCredit’s chief executive in 2021, said in a statement that a deal for BPM would “broaden our geographic reach, expand our client base across both retail and corporate clients, and further grow our premium businesses”, adding that it would cement UniCredit’s status as Italy’s second biggest bank.

He said the offer for BPM “does not have any implications” for its investment in Commerzbank.

“The situation there [at Commerzbank] is very different”, Orcel said.

He said, in relation to its Commerzbank stake, that UniCredit “may either seek to go further if the conditions are right or to exit our investment and return the capital”.

That decision would take time because “I think it is important to respect the electoral process in Germany”, he said. Germany is set to hold a snap general election in February.

The proposal UniCredit’s offer represents a 0.5 per cent premium to Friday’s price but a premium of 14.6 per cent premium to the share price on November 6, the date on which Banco BPM made an offer to buy asset manager Anima Holding for €1.6bn.

UniCredit said its view was that BPM “does not currently have the adequate scale to operate in a context of major change and evolution”.