UniCredit shares were down slightly after the Financial Times reported that the Italian bank was in merger talks with Commerzbank before the war in Ukraine forced them to abandon any possible deal.
UniCredit’s share is down 0.2% and Commerzbank’s share is up 2% after the announcement.
UniCredit did not comment on the report and a Commerzbank spokesman said the German bank’s current strategy was to create the conditions for it to remain independent.
UniCredit CEO Andrea Orcel, former head of investment strategy at UBS, has stated that UniCredit will consider mergers and acquisitions in all the markets in which it already operates.
A newspaper leak and the Ukrainian crisis later in the year derailed Orcel’s plans to take over the smaller competitor Banco.
UniCredit, which controls the German bank HypoVereinsbank, had already considered a possible acquisition of Commerzbank under former CEO Jean Pierre Muster.
FT cites anonymous sources as saying that Orxel had arranged a meeting in early 2022 in Germany to discuss a merger with the CEO of Commerzbank, but the Russian invasion of Ukraine forced UniCredit to focus on its Russian report, which trying to sell.
Source: Capital
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