“Speculating on such details at this stage can only be misleading. UniCredit has a proven track record in terms of “investment in its network and branches, as well as in the management of its staff,” assured a spokesperson for the bank.
UniCredit on Thursday described as “pure conjecture” the estimate of 6,000 job cuts put forward by Banco BPM as a consequence of its takeover by the second Italian bank, which launched a public share exchange offer (OPE) on Monday. his regard.
“Speculating on such details at this stage can only be misleading. UniCredit has a proven track record in terms of “investment in its network and branches, as well as in the management of its staff,” assured a spokesperson for the bank.
The cost synergies estimated by UniCredit, or 900 million euros per year, “would imply a staff reduction of more than 6,000 colleagues,” BPM CEO Giuseppe Castagna declared on Wednesday, deeming these savings “very worrying”.
Banco BPM, emerged in 2017 from the merger between Banco Populare and Banca Populare of Milan, has 20,000 employees. Its rival UniCredit has 27,000 employees in Italy, out of a total of nearly 70,000 worldwide.
Banco BPM, Italy’s third-largest banking group, intends to remain “autonomous” to ensure its growth, Mr. Castagna emphasized on Wednesday in a letter addressed to employees.
“This is the right path to follow to grow on our own and not become the object of operations that do not take into account the value expressed by our bank,” he argued.
BPM’s board of directors judged UniCredit’s public offering valuing it at 10.1 billion euros insufficient on Tuesday, thus inflicting a new setback on its boss Andrea Orcel, already facing strong resistance in Germany to a possible takeover of Commerzbank.
A merger between UniCredit and Banco BPM, whose main shareholder is Crédit Agricole with a 9.18% share, would give birth to the leading banking group in Italy in terms of assets and capitalization, ahead of Intesa SanPaolo.
The general secretary of the banking sector employees’ union (Fabi), Lando Maria Sileoni, said on Thursday he was “very concerned about the job losses that could result” from a merger between UniCredit and Banco BPM.
“Strategies aimed at strengthening competitiveness must not result in an unacceptable social price for workers, their families and local communities,” he noted in a press release.
