Andrea Orcel, chief executive officer of Unicredit, in London, UK, on Thursday, Nov. 23, 2023.
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UniCredit CEO Andrea Orcel told CNBC Tuesday that he does not foresee a future where the Italian lender fully controls Commerzbank.
Orcel’s comments came as the Italian lender’s tender offer to raise its stake in the German bank kicks off.
“If we get to control, which is not the expected scenario at the moment, what we would do is very clear, and the returns on that would be … very positive for our shareholders, and also for the shareholders of Commerzbank, but it’s up to them,” he told CNBC’s Carolin Roth.
“We’re not really fretting it. We are just focusing on delivering, and we’ve done all we could to engage, and now we are just looking at what shareholders will do.”
Last month, UniCredit announced an offer to build more shares in Commerzbank, structured as a share exchange. The move aims to increase UniCredit’s holding in Commerzbank to more than 30%, a key regulatory threshold.
It already holds a 28% stake in Commerzbank, after steadily increasing its investment in the German lender since taking a minority stake in 2024.
The tender offer for Commerzbank begins on Tuesday.
On Monday, UniCredit shareholders voted to approve the issuance of 470 million new shares which could be exchanged for Commerzbank shares tendered in the offer.
Orcel’s interview with CNBC came after UniCredit published its first-quarter earnings, which were touted as the bank’s 21st quarter of profitable growth and its best quarter on record.
Quarterly net profit grew 16.1% year-on-year to 3.2 billion euros ($3.74 billion), well above the 2.8 billion euros expected by analysts polled by LSEG.
Shares of UniCredit were up by around 3% in early trade on Tuesday.
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