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Despite Consob's decision to grant an additional 30 days for the BPM takeover bid, Unicredit announces its withdrawal from the offer. The landscape in the national risk game is changing.
Questions asked in this interview
10
0:04You mentioned the Golden Power — was that fatal?
1:18One of the main points of your strategy for growing our country disappears. What changes for you today?
3:50But Orcel, is this chapter definitively closed for you?
4:10Your position on Commerzbank is also considered risky. What are your intentions?
6:17Commerzbank has activities in Poland that could be interesting for you, also in view of potentially finding an agreement in the future?
7:55In light of what happened in Italy, with the government playing an active role that effectively prevented the deal, is this a failed stress test for the banking union? How do you see it?
9:25Speaking of results, this 3.3 billion net profit — where does it come from, in a context where net interest margins and revenue are under pressure in recent months?
11:34So you could raise guidance again during the year?
12:25Can I ask how you feel this morning, the day after the announcement of the withdrawal?
In the second quarter of the year, UniCredit beat analysts' expectations for net profit and raised its guidance across the line. We're joined by Andrea Orcel, the CEO. Good morning, Orcel. But we have to start with the latest news: the withdrawal of the offer on Banco BPM after eight months of battle. You mentioned the Golden Power — was that fatal?
I don't think it was eight months of battle. It was eight months of being frozen, because we waited for the resolution of the Golden Power, without which we always said it wasn't possible to move forward. At a certain point we realized that the timelines were so long that we would remain stuck in this situation.
30 days changes nothing, because after those 30 days come the TAR, the European Union timelines — they go well beyond those 30 days. So we found ourselves in a situation where we had a burden, we couldn't focus on what we wanted to focus on, and we decided to move forward, as they say in English, cut our losses — eliminate it, free ourselves of a burden, and especially accelerate in Italy.
For us, it changes for the better. If you look at our results, Italy has done substantially better than expected and continues to do substantially better. To give you a sense of scale, in one quarter we earn more than BPM earns in four, and we're accelerating while BPM is decelerating.
So for us, we free our hands, we find our focus again solely on our internal growth strategy. The team is doing exceptionally well, and the raised guidance is very much due to the progress Italy is making. From our point of view, we're growing. We provided 7.5 billion more in lending to SMEs. We've never had such a positive context. It's challenging, but it gives us the opportunity to show what we can do.
I believe it's a missed opportunity for BPM shareholders, who didn't have the chance to engage with us on the merits. A missed opportunity for clients who won't have access to our factories and our greater lending capacity. Possibly a missed opportunity for BPM's people. If we look at what we're doing for ours, surely it's a missed opportunity for the sector, which needs bigger banks and needs to consolidate to deliver the services it must and make the investments it needs to. It's a missed opportunity for our country, for Europe. For us, as I said, my shareholders, my people, my clients want me to add value. How do I do that? They leave the decision to me. I've always said that mergers and acquisitions can be an accelerator on the right terms, but it's not an end in itself. At this point, drawing a line under BPM frees us from a burden, allows us to accelerate, and truly allows us to see what this bank can do on its own in Italy and as a group. If you look at the results, I believe they speak for themselves.
As we always say, nothing is ever closed. We evaluate everything, we look at everything, but I would say the situation would need to change substantially for us to do something different.
Orcel, A. (2025, July 23). UniCredit withdraws its takeover bid for BPM, an exclusive interview with Orcel. [Interview transcript]. Class CNBC. CEOInterviews.AI. https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/1046010/
MLA
Andrea Orcel. "UniCredit withdraws its takeover bid for BPM, an exclusive interview with Orcel.." Class CNBC, 23 Jul. 2025. Transcript, CEOInterviews.AI, https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/1046010/.
BibTeX
@misc{orcel2025_1046010,
author = {Andrea Orcel},
title = {UniCredit withdraws its takeover bid for BPM, an exclusive interview with Orcel.},
howpublished = {Interview transcript, Class CNBC. CEOInterviews.AI},
year = {2025},
month = {jul},
url = {https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/1046010/},
note = {Speaker-attributed transcript with timestamps}
}
