Italian banking group BPER Banca has agreed to acquire 100% stake of Unipol Banca, a unit of Unipol Group, for a cash consideration of €220m.
The deal marks the completion of the restructuring of Unipol Group’s banking business.
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Unipol Group, which also owns a 15% stake in BPER Banca, will now focus on its core insurance business.
In a statement, Unipol Group said to pull out of the direct management of a mid-sized bank to take ‘on the role of long term stable investor of one of the leading Italian banking groups’.
Unipol Banca deal
The acquisition will bolster BPER’s assets by nearly 17% and increase the customer base by more than 500,000 units.
As a part of the deal, Unipol Group will also take over a portfolio of BPER Banca’s non-performing loans with a gross value of €1.3bn for a payment of €130m.
With 258 branches, BPER Banca is the sixth-largest bank in Italy, according to Reuters. Headquartered in the northern Emilia Romagna region, it also operates an insurance joint-venture with Unipol.
Concurrently, BPER Banca also announced that it acquire all Banco di Sardegna (BdS) ordinary and preferred shares owned by Fondazione di Sardegna (FdS). BdS is an Italian bank operating primarily on the island of Sardinia.
As a part of the deal, it will pay 33 million newly issued BPER Banca shares and a convertible subordinated Additional Tier 1 (AT1) instrument with a nominal value of €150m.
