Unicredit has put up for sale 9,1% of the Polish subsidiary Bank Pekao. The offer is aimed at institutional investors and provides for an accelerated procedure. Piazza Cordusio will in any case maintain a stake in the Bank of at least 50,1%. Based on recent quotations, the operation announced yesterday should yield around 900 million euros. Unicredit had bought 50% of Bank Pekao in 1999 for $1,2 billion.
The Italian Bank has also decided to rationalize its presence in the Baltic countries by centralizing all operations in Latvia and closing branches and corporate offices in Estonia and Lithuania. The procedure should be completed in mid-2013. The project, which is part of the strategic plan presented at the end of 2011, involves the closure of two branches in Estonia and Lithuania and two corporate offices in Lithuania.
But these days we are not only talking about corporate strategies. The earthquake that is devastating Monte dei Paschi di Siena has brought to light doubts about the real exposure of Italian institutes as regards the derivatives market. For this reason, yesterday the CEO of Unicredit, Federico Ghizzoni, reassured the markets on the group's financial position: “Our overdraft, which has not been closed, is only 600 million out of over 900 billion in assets – he said -, practically irrelevant. We have produced them for commercial activities on customers. In essence, we have extremely limited risk. Since 2011, we have already carried out a series of operational checks on the group's processes, long before the MPS case broke out. We feel calm."
This morning at the opening in Piazza Affari, the Unicredit share gains 1,3%.
