UniCredit CEO ready to walk away if conditions for Commerzbank deal not right
Commerzbank investment could return more than 15%
UniCredit could just sell stake, has capped downside
HVB offers blueprint to improve Commerzbank returns
Recasts with further comments from UniCredit CEO
By Valentina Za
MILAN, Sept 25 (Reuters) -Italy's UniCredit CRDI.MI will only pursue a deal with Commerzbank CBKG.DE if it has support from all stakeholders and conditions are right, its CEO Andrea Orcel said on Wednesday, adding the bank could just sell its stake.
UniCredit angered the German government this week by raising its holding in Commerzbank close to 21%, conditional on European Central Bank approval, using derivative instruments. Chancellor Olaf Scholz slammed the move as "an unfriendly attack".
"Commerzbank, for us at the moment, is an investment, nothing else. There is no offer, there is no bid," Orcel told a Bank of America investor conference in London.
"We're indeed a large shareholder, a strategic shareholder now, but it is an investment ... and people should comment and think about that as an investment and nothing else," he said when asked about Scholz's response.
While a tie-up would be the best outcome, Orcel said, UniCredit has room for manoeuvre because the financial derivatives contracts it has employed limit any losses.
"We are in an investment and we're floored. We don't need to do something together. We think it will add a lot of value. We think it will be best for both banks," he said.
"But do we need to do that? Are we going to be dragged to do that at terms that don't make sense? Absolutely not," he added.
Commerzbank's shares have risen sharply since Orcel's move to build a stake in the bank as investors bet on a full takeover bid by the Italian group.
UniCredit this month emerged as Commerzbank's biggest investor after the German state, when it outbid rivals to secure a 4.5% holding from the government, having built a similar-sized stake on the market.
After Germany said last week it would pause selling any more of the its residual 12% Commerzbank stake, UniCredit this week unveiled having secured a 11.5% holding, pending ECB approval.
Orcel said UniCredit's Commerzbank move should not come as a surprise because it was a strategic fit and the investment could generate a return of more than 15%, the threshold which UniCredit had long set to consider any investments.
UniCredit was "very keen" to resume conversations with Commerzbank's stakeholders it had held before being invited to bid at the state tender, Orcel said, an invitation which UniCredit had assumed was a consequence of those conversations.
But UniCredit is also aware any deal requires broad support.
"Do not underestimate how disciplined we are. It doesn't meet our metrics? We won't do it," he said. The turnaround UniCredit has achieved at its German unit HVB since Orcel arrived in 2021 provides "a blueprint" to push through similar changes at Commerzbank and improve returns even before any merger of the two businesses, he said.
Veteran dealmaker Orcel has walked away from negotiations with the Italian government to buy Monte dei Paschi and dropped a takeover offer for rival Banco BPM at the eleventh hour.
Reporting by Valentina Za, editing by Gavin Jones, Keith Weir and Alexander Smith
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