Berlin (Reuters) – Unicredit reported its project to acquire a 29.99% participation in the German Bank Commerzbank in the German competition police gendarme, a spokesperson for the Bundeskartellamt said on Wednesday.
The request for evaluation, dated Monday, appears in the list of procedures for controlling the current mergers on the website of the Federal Competition Authority.
The Bundeskartellamt will have up to a month to decide whether this acquisition poses problems, as part of a first -stage evaluation procedure.
Unicredit announced in September, to everyone’s surprise, a stake of 9% in Commerzbank, arousing the anger of Berlin and the German bank, which qualified the operation of hostile and unilateral.
This refusal did not discourage the Italian group, which then asked the supervisory authorities to hold up to 29.9% of its German competitor.
The director general of Unicredit, Andrea Orcel, said that he wanted to wait for a new government to be in place in Berlin, after the legislative elections on Sunday, before making an offer on the rest of Commerzbank.
The planned participation declared in the German regulatory authority is just below the 30% threshold which would trigger a compulsory public purchase offer under German rules.
Andrea Orcel said this month that a decision on the fate of Unicredit’s participation in Commerzbank would be made within three to five quarters.
(Matthias Inverardi, written by Rachel More; Diana Mandiá; edited by Augustin Turpin)
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