BERLIN (Reuters) -German Chancellor Friedrich Merz has told staff at Commerzbank he opposes Italian lender UniCredit’s efforts to build up a stake in the bank, in a letter which Germany’s finance minister said was “an important signal” about the government’s stance.<\/p>\n
Merz addressed labour representatives at Commerzbank in a letter dated May 26, and posted on LinkedIn on Tuesday, saying the Italian lender’s approach for Germany’s second-biggest bank was unacceptable.<\/p>\n
“This is particularly true when it comes to a systemically important bank such as Commerzbank AG,” wrote Merz, who has previously spoken out against a potential takeover attempt by UniCredit, which he has said would be devastating for Germany, with “a significant impact” on medium-sized businesses and export financing that rely heavily on bank lending.<\/p>\n
“I am very grateful that the chancellor has spoken out,” German Finance Minister Lars Klingbeil said at a press conference with his Swedish counterpart, Elisabeth Svantesson, in Berlin.<\/p>\n
UniCredit disclosed last year that it had built a web of financial transactions through derivatives to secure a Commerzbank stake of around 28%, and in March this year it received European Central Bank approval to get to 29.9%. Under German rules, crossing the 30% threshold triggers a buyout offer.<\/p>\n
UniCredit has said the stake is a financial investment and pushed back any decision on a full takeover, which it says would be the best outcome, to 2026-2027.<\/p>\n
“I recognise that the political statement of a chancellor alone is also an important political signal,” said Klingbeil.<\/p>\n
“However, we are also engaged in political discussions. As soon as there are results, they will be made public,” he added.<\/p>\n
Politicians in Berlin fear losing one of Germany’s few remaining big commercial banks as well as tying their country’s fortunes to those of debt-laden Italy.<\/p>\n
(Reporting by Thomas Seythal and Miranda Murray, additional reporting by John O’Donnell, editing by Friederike Heine and Susan Fenton)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BERLIN (Reuters) -German Chancellor Friedrich Merz has told staff at Commerzbank he opposes Italian lender UniCredit’s efforts to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":173176,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5310],"tags":[49696,2000,299,71839,1945,15439,1824,49697,23774],"class_list":{"0":"post-173175","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-germany","8":"tag-commerzbank","9":"tag-eu","10":"tag-europe","11":"tag-finance-minister","12":"tag-friedrich-merz","13":"tag-german-chancellor","14":"tag-germany","15":"tag-lars-klingbeil","16":"tag-unicredit"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114659588045879744","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173175","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=173175"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173175\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/173176"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=173175"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=173175"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=173175"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}