Rising interest rates have pushed up profits, and policymakers would like to see banks in Europe that can compete with US rivals. However, the obstacles are far from being overcome.
Europe’s last major cross-border bank merger, brokered by the local banking association in 2007 in secret meetings at the luxury Four Seasons hotel in Geneva, did not end well.
But 17 years after Dutch lender ABN Amro was broken up by three other banks that then needed multibillion-euro bailouts during the financial crisis, European bank executives are once again mulling mergers.
Andrea Orcel, who as lead investment banker at Merrill Lynch, played a key role in the takeover of ABN Amro by Royal Bank of Scotland, Santander and Fortis, has taken a leading role in this area. Italian bank UniCredit, of which he currently serves as CEO, is making waves in the upper echelons of the European financial world by acquiring a significant stake in Commerzbank, Germany’s second largest lender.
Having acquired a number of shares from the German government, which bailed out Commerzbank during the financial crisis, and gradually built up a sizeable position through derivatives, UniCredit shocked German political and business circles by disclosing its 9 percent stake.
After receiving permission from the European Central Bank – which should be a mere formality – UniCredit will be able to convert all of its derivatives positions into shares, which would increase the Italian bank’s ownership to 21 percent, making it Commerzbank’s largest shareholder.
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Source: www.aripaev.ee
