Bloomberg Talks
00:06:18 · Francine Lacqua, Andrea Orcel
[00:06:18] S1: Andrea, have you discussed with the German government what happens to the roughly 13% stake they have in Commerzbank? Will they sell off the stake? [00:06:30] S0: It is their decision, and I'm not going to comment on that, but I can only comment that as far as UniCredit is concerned, we're about 50% of Commerzbank. It is exactly the best place we could be. We're happy to remain there. We're happy to share with minority investors, including the government, on the acceleration of Commerzbank. And eventually, if shareholders, employees, and the two institutions feel that this is a strong rationale, combining Commerzbank and HVB, we hear a lot of people being positive on that. because the joining forces of such complementary franchises can accelerate a lot of things and give opportunities to a lot of people. Well, if that is the case, we're ready to consider that as well. So for the time being, we view the government as a very important shareholder with whom we have a good dialogue and they will take their decision on what they want to do. But our job is The same job as we do for ourselves is maximizing returns over time and strengthening the organization and make them be more and more impactful on the local economy. [00:07:46] S1: Andrea, Credit Agricole has now proposed a merger between Banco BPM and Credit Agricole Italia. You were after Banco BPM and then decided to abandon that. Do you feel left out? Do you feel like you're missing out on the consolidation opportunities in Italy?
00:07:46 · Francine Lacqua, Andrea Orcel
[00:07:46] S1: Andrea, Credit Agricole has now proposed a merger between Banco BPM and Credit Agricole Italia. You were after Banco BPM and then decided to abandon that. Do you feel left out? Do you feel like you're missing out on the consolidation opportunities in Italy? [00:08:02] S0: No, actually, and we discussed it many times earlier this year, and we were very clear multiple times. We thought the acquisition of BPM was a good deal at the time. It was not to be. We totally shifted gear. As you know, Italy upgraded their organic plan and expressed to everybody or indicated to everybody that we could achieve the same or more organically. From August to August, our market share in the targeted segments in Italy has increased 130 basis points. We're now running at 10 basis points of market share gain per quarter, sorry, per month. And this is before something that I had never seen in my career. A market where of the top seven banks, six are involved in M & A, which means integration, which means disruption, which means antitrust remedies. And one has a very focused plan with all the levers aligned to deliver it. So if we're gaining 10 business points per month now, we think we're going to accelerate in the next four to eight quarters. [00:09:20] S1: Andrea, very quickly, can we expect another big M & A after Commerzbank from you? [00:09:28] S0: I don't think so. I can't see. I think what UniCredit can deliver organically is far more than I can do through M & A. [00:09:37] S1: Andrea, as always, thank you so much for joining us.