In a move it claims is unrelated to its pursuit of German bank Commerzbank, Italian lender UniCredit made an offer on Monday to acquire its domestic rival Banco BPM for about 10 billion euros ($10.5 billion).
If the acquisition goes through, it will combine two of the biggest lenders in Italy. Early on Monday, UniCredit said it was making an offer of 6.657 euros per share, a little more than the closing price of 6.644 euros on Friday.
The acquisition, which would be all-stock, would enable UniCredit to “further strengthen its role as a leading pan-European banking group,” according to the bank.
The revelation on Monday comes after the European banking industry announced several mergers and acquisitions this year. For years, the sector has been seen as ready for consolidation, and UniCredit, which has a lot of money, is frequently mentioned as a potential buyer.
UniCredit raised its ownership of Commerzbank, a German lender, to about 21% in September and requested an increase to 29.9%. The German government had sold half of the Italian bank’s 9% interest in Commerzbank to the Italian bank earlier that month.
Chancellor Olaf Scholz said in late September, as reported by Reuters, that “unfriendly attacks, hostile takeovers are not good for banks,” indicating that the German government has not yet approved the proposed unification.
After saving Commerzbank during the 2008 financial crisis and selling off 4.5% of its original holding in early September, the Berlin administration, Commerzbank’s largest stakeholder, still owns 12% of the company.
In the meantime, Banco BPM itself bid 1.6 billion euros earlier this month for asset management Anima and a few days later purchased a 5% stake in state-owned Monte dei Paschi di Siena (MPS).
In contrast to Reuters’s 2.27 billion euro projection, UniCredit reported an 8% year-over-year increase in quarterly net profit on November 6 to 2.5 billion euros ($2.25 billion). Additionally, it increased its guidance for full-year net profit from 8.5 billion euros to above 9 billion euros. So far this year, shares have increased by around 55%.
