FILE PHOTO – UniCredit Group headquarters on the day of a special board meeting with CEO Andrea Orcel. (zu dpa: «Italy’s UniCredit to sell Russian business to private UAE investor») Emanuele Roberto De Carli/IPA via ZUMA Press/dpa
Italian lender UniCredit has signed a non-binding agreement with a private Emirati investor to sell its Russian business, the bank said on Thursday, as it seeks to streamline its operations ahead of a planned takeover of German rival Commzerbank.
The transaction is to be carried out in the first half of 2027, and is likely to reduce UniCredit’s profit by between €3 billion and €3.3 billion ($3.5 billion and $3.8 billion), the bank said.
The profit targets set by UniCredit chief executive Andrea Orcel for 2028 to 2030 are not expected to be affected by the move, according to the lender.
UniCredit is one of the largest international banks that are still active in Russia following the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, ranking second behind Austria’s Raiffeisenbank in 2024.
That year, an arbitration tribunal in St Petersburg froze UniCredit’s bank accounts and assets in Russia after plans for the construction of an LNG terminal on the Baltic Sea, for which UniCredit had provided a guarantee, fell through due to Western sanctions.
Going forward, UniCredit, which published a former takeover offer for Germany’s Commerzbank on Tuesday, intends to focus primarily on international payments in euros and US dollars for Western and Russian business customers who are not affected by sanctions.
Since the start of Russia’s war against Ukraine in 2022, the European Union, the US and other countries have progressively restricted business dealings with Russia.