UniCredit

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UniCredit Group
UniCredit S.p.A.
Società per azioni
Traded as BITUCG
FWBCRI
WSEUCG
Industry Financial services
Founded 1998
1473 (as Rolo Banca)[citation needed]
1870 (as Banca di Genova)[citation needed]
1895 (as Credito Italiano)[citation needed]
Headquarters Porta Nuova Business District, Milan, Italy
EUR, Rome, Italy
Key people
Giuseppe Vita (Chairman), Federico Ghizzoni (CEO)
Products Corporate, retail and private banking, asset management, securities trading
Revenue 52,3 billion[1]
€5.722 billion (3q2013)[1]
Profit -€15.0 billion (4q2013)[1]
Total assets €949.769 billion (3q2013)[1]
Total equity €61.303 billion (3q2013)[1]
Number of employees
148,341 (FTE, 2013)[2]
Website www.unicreditgroup.eu

UniCredit Group is an Italian global banking and financial services company. Its network spanning 50 markets in 17 countries, with more than 8,500 branches and over 147,000 employees.[3] Its strategic position in Western and Eastern Europe gives the group one of the region's highest market shares. The company is a component of the Euro Stoxx 50 stock market index.[4]

Geography

The company has its registered office in Rome and general management in Milan.[5] UniCredit's core markets are Italy, Austria, Russia, Southern Germany and Bulgaria. The UniCredit Group has investment banking divisions in New York, London, Hong Kong, Milan, Munich, Vienna, Budapest and Warsaw.

With the goal of fostering trade and investment between Eastern and Western Europe, UniCredit has joined up with Ost-Ausschuss der Deutschen Wirtschaft and the Federal State of Berlin to host the east forum Berlin.[6]

UniCredit Bulbank Headquarters in Sofia, Bulgaria.
UniCredit Headquarters in EUR, Rome
UniCredit in Vilnius, Lithuania

History

UniCredit Group was the outcome of the 1998 merger of several Italian banks, which the majority one were Unicredito (banks from Turin, Verona and Treviso) and Credito Italiano, hence the name Unicredito Italiano. Other banks such as Banca dell'Umbria, Cassa di Risparmio di Carpi, Cassa di Risparmio di Trento e Rovereto (Caritro), Cassa di Risparmio di Trieste also merged into the group in 1998–99.

In 1999, UniCredito Italiano, as it was then known, began its expansion in Eastern Europe with the acquisition of Polish Bank Pekao.

In 2005, UniCredit merged with the German group HVB, which is itself formed in 1998 by the combination of two Bavarian banks: Bayerische Vereinsbank and Bayerische Hypotheken-und Wechsel-Bank. Integration with the HVB Group was reinforced by the merger with Bank Austria Creditanstalt in the year 2000 and enabled further growth for the UniCredit Group. However, this merger was only marginally profitable. Additionally, Bank Austria Creditanstalt was a major shareholder in Bank Medici AG. Bank Medici was Thema Fund's investment manager.[7] In return for finding investors, Bank Medici collected fees of 4.6 million euros from Thema International Fund in 2007.[8] Following the news that Bank Medici had invested US$2 billion with Bernard Madoff, officials in Vienna appointed a supervisor to run the private bank, raising questions about control of the sprawling group.

In 2007, in combination with the Capitalia Group, the third-largest Italian banking group; UniCredit Group consolidated and strengthened its position, but added considerably to its overhead costs. In the same year, two more acquisitions were carried out: ATF Bank, which ranks fifth out of domestic banks in Kazakhstan with 154 branches, and Ukrsotsbank, a universal bank. With these two banks the Group extended its operations in this area to 19 countries (including Central Asia). However, in November 2012, Kazakh government sources declared UniCredit is in talks with Kazakh investors over the sale of a controlling stake in ATF Bank.[9]

In 2013 UniCredit Finance informed that they would no longer provide banking services in Latvia.[10]

On March 14, 2014 UniCredit announced that it expects to cut around 8.500 jobs upcoming time, together with the announcement of an 15 billion loss in the 4th quarter of 2013 due to extensive cash-reserving for bad loans and writing down goodwill from acquisitions.[11] UniCredit is one of the 6 European banks which is currently most exposed to potential problems in the emerging markets.[12]

UniCredit Group also controls the Banco di Sicilia Group which is one of the oldest Italian banks.

In April 2015 UniCredit SpA and Banco Santander SA reached an agreement to merge their asset-management businesses in a transaction valuing the combined entity at about 5.4 billion euros ($5.8 billion). The accord created a holding company called Pioneer Investments that is 50 percent owned by UniCredit and 50 percent held by the U.S. buyout firms Warburg Pincus LLC and General Atlantic LLC. The holding firm owns Pioneer’s U.S. business and controls combined operations of UniCredit’s Pioneer, excluding its U.S. activities, and Santander Asset Management. The two lenders hold each one third of the new combined business, while Warburg Pincus and General Atlantic owns the rest. [13]

Ownership

Shareholders owning more than 2% (September 2015):[14]

On 11 March 2011, Unicredit said in a press release that they froze the voting rights of the Libyan shareholders (Central Bank of Libya and Lia).[15]

See also

References

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  4. Frankfurt Stock Exchange
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  10. http://www.baltic-legal.com/banking-in-latvia-list-of-banks-unicredit-bank-eng.htm Unicredit stopped banking services in Latvia – Baltic Legal
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  14. https://www.unicreditgroup.eu/en/governance/shareholder-structure.html
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External links