FRANKFURT (Reuters) – Commerzbank CEO Bettina Orlopp on Wednesday labelled UniCredit’s approach for a potential merger as “unfriendly” and said that any deal would likely hurt revenue.
Orlopp also said a focus on cutting costs under any deal would not be easy or free of risk.
The comments underscore the scepticism by the German lender of a deal that would reshape German finance and has been pushed for by UniCredit over the past year.
Orlopp, speaking at a financial conference, said a tie-up with UniCredit’s German unit HVB would be between two players with similar business models, resulting in “revenue attrition because there is heavy overlap on the corporate client side”.
A focus on cost synergies “requires really a lot of work, attention, time, and money to achieve that, specifically when it comes to a rather unfriendly large-scale transaction,” Orlopp said.
UniCredit’s CEO Andrea Orcel by contrast has argued the benefits of a merger since the Italian bank began building up its Commerzbank stake a year ago.
Speaking earlier at the same conference, Orcel said he hoped Commerzbank “would see the light over time”.
(Reporting by Tom Sims, Editing by Miranda Murray and Ludwig Burger)
