Frankfurt (Reuters) – Bettina Orlopp, chairman of the board of the German bank Commerzbank, criticized the attempt of the unicredit leader on Thursday to lower the action of the German bank coveted by his Italian rival.
Andrea Orcel, managing director of Unicredit, said on Wednesday that the title Commerzbank no longer reflected the group’s fundamentals after having increased sharply.
“We do not like and we do not accept the approaches that undermine our strategy and the evolution of the course of action,” reacted Bettina Orlopp on Thursday at a conference.
The leader said that the course of the Commerzbank action, which has more than doubled since the first inclination to buy Unicredit, was fair and condemned the attempt to “lower the course of our action simply because other interests could be at stake”.
Last May, Bettina Orlopp had already indicated that he did not need “constant interference from the outside”.
The group’s employees and the German government posted their union against the supply of Unicredit whose potential consequences on employment are worried.
Unicredit has accumulated a 28% stake in Commerzbank and Andrea Orcel said on Wednesday that he hoped to complete the stages allowing him to convert two thirds of the which still holds in capital still in the form of derivative products.
Bettina Orlopp, named at the head of the second German bank in 2024, also said it was satisfied at the moment of the group’s second quarter which takes place in the line of its strategic plan.
(Written by Tom Sims and Matthias Inverardi, Bertrand de Meyer, edited by Blandine Hénault)
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