UniCredit

UniCredit S.p.A.

Type	Società per azioni
Traded as	BIT: UCG, FWB: CRI
Industry	Financial services
Founded	1473 (as Credito Romagnolo), 1870 (as Banca di Genova), 1895 (as Credito Italiano)
Headquarters	Rome, Italy Milan, Italy
Key people	Giuseppe Vita (Chairman), Federico Ghizzoni (CEO)
Products	Corporate, retail and private banking, asset management, securities trading
Revenue	€26.35 billion (2010)
Operating income	€10.86 billion (2010)
Profit	€1.323 billion (2010)
Total assets	€929.49 billion (end 2010)
Total equity	€64.22 billion (end 2010)
Employees	162,010 (FTE, end 2010)
Website	www.unicreditgroup.eu

UniCredit SpA is an Italian global banking and financial services company with approximately 40 million customers and operations in 22 countries.

Geography

UniCredit Headquarters in Porta Nuova, Milan

UniCredit Bulbank Headquarters in Sofia, Bulgaria.

UniCredit Headquarters in EUR, Rome

UniCredit in Vilnius, Lithuania.

The company has its registered office in Rome and general management in Milan. UniCredit's core markets are Italy, Austria, Russia and Southern Germany. UniCredit also has operations in Central and Eastern Europe. The UniCredit Group has investment banking divisions in London, Milan, Munich, Vienna, Moscow, Budapest and Warsaw.

History

UniCredit Group was the outcome of the 1998 merger of several Italian banks.

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. In returning for finding investors, Bank Medici collected fees of 4.6 million euros from Thema International Fund in 2007. 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.

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

Ownership

Shareholders owning more than 2% (December 2012):

• Aabar Investments – 6.498%
• PGFF - 5.009%
• Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Verona, Vicenza, Belluno e Ancona – 3.533%
• Carimonte Holding (subsidiary of Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Modena)– 3.012%
• Central Bank of Libya – 2.911%
• Capital Research and Management Company - 2.731%
• Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Torino – 2.506%
• Allianz – 2.015%
• Delfin S.A.R.L.- 2.004%

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

See also

• European Financial Services Roundtable
• HypoVereinsbank
• Pioneer Investments
• List of investors in Bernard L. Madoff Securities

External links

• Official website