Italy's UniCredito has agreed to buy HVB Group of Germany in what will be Europe's biggest-ever cross-border banking takeover deal.
"We are creating the first truly European bank," HVB Chief Executive Dieter Rampl said last night after his bank's supervisory board approved the deal, worth €20 billion, to form the region's ninth-biggest bank.
The takeover will fuse the two banks' big investments in central Europe and in their affluent domestic markets. It will be run by UniCredito chief executive Alessandro Profumo, who will retain that post at the enlarged bank.
UniCredito said it will offer five new shares for each one in HVB, valuing the German bank at €15.4 billion, plus shares or cash for stock in Bank Austria Creditanstalt and in BPH in Poland, both part of HVB group.
The takeover, if completed, would be bigger than the 2004 acquisition by Spain's Santander Central Hispano of Abbey National in Britain.
As well as HVB's central European assets, UniCredito stands to gain its retail network in Bavaria and northern Germany, and fund arm Activest.