UniCredit

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UniCredit SpA
UniCredit Logo
Type Public
Founded 1473 (as Rolo Banca)
Headquarters Milan, Italy
Key people Dieter Rampl, Chairman
Alessandro Profumo, CEO
Industry Finance and Insurance
Products Financial Services
Operating income €23.464 billion EUR (2006)
Net income €5.448 billion EUR (2006)
Employees 140,000
Website www.unicredit.com

UniCredit SpA (FWB: CRI, ISE: IT0000064854) is a Milan-based, pan-European bank, with over 28 million customers and operations in 19 countries. UniCredit's core areas of operations are Italy, Austria and Southern Germany, one of the European Union's wealthiest transnational regions. Moreover the bank has substantial operations in Central & Eastern Europe. It is also known as the UniCredit Group and as UniCredito.

The UniCredit Group has substantial investment banking divisions running in Munich and Frankfurt.

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[edit] Pan-European operations

In total, UniCredit runs 7,000 branches and 140,000 employees:

  • in Italy (No. 2 with 10% market share):
    • Customer Loans € 122bn
    • Customer Deposits € 72bn
    • Branches 3,137
    • Employees 40,000
    • Customers 6.3m
  • in Germany (No. 2 with 5% market share):
    • Customer Loans € 153bn
    • Customer Deposits € 61bn
    • Branches 681
    • Employees 26,000
    • Customers 4.0m
  • in Austria (No. 1 with 18% market share ):
    • Customer Loans € 51bn
    • Customer Deposits € 35bn
    • Branches 405
    • Employees 12,000
    • Customers 1.8m
  • in Central and Eastern Europe (No. 1 bank in 4 countries):
    • Customer Loans € 41bn
    • Customer Deposits € 47bn
    • Employees 58,000
    • Customers 16.4m

UniCredit is one of the industry's leaders in Central and Eastern Europe:

The Group holds a leading position in Poland, Bosnia, Bulgaria and Croatia, and ranks among the top five in Turkey, Slovakia, Serbia, Romania and the Czech Republic.

There are also significant banking presences in Russia, Ukraine, Hungary, Slovenia and the Baltic states.

[edit] History

Through several mergers only during the 1990s, UniCredit grew into one of the largest banking corporations in Italy.

UniCredit (together with Allianz) bought 52.09% of the Polish Bank Pekao in August 1999. In 2000, UniCredit (together with Allianz) bought 98% of Bulbank, one of the leading Bulgarian banks. In 2002, UniCredit acquired 50% of the Turkish Koçbank. In March the same year, UniCredit again joined with Allianz to buy 96.21% of Zagrebačka banka, the largest Croatian bank. Through them it also acquired what is now UniZaba, the third largest bank in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

On 24th November 2005, UniCredit SpA completed its acquisition of German rival Bayerische HypoVereinsbank Aktiengesellschaft, after shareholders representing 93.93% of the shares accepted the offer of five new UniCredit shares for each HVB share.

HVB in turn owns 94.98% of Bank Austria (which owns 71.03% of Bank BPH from Poland and a bank in Slovenia). UniCredit now also owns several other HVB banks in the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Ukraine, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, Serbia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina. In Croatia and Poland, the merger caused the group to sell subsidiaries in order to avoid too much market concentration.

[edit] See also

[edit] External links