ROME (Reuters) – UniCredit said on Wednesday that Italy’s market watchdog Consob approved the share offer document for its 14 billion euro all-share bid for smaller rival Banco BPM, the last required step to launch the tender.
The offer will run between April 28 and June 23, Italy’s second-largest bank said in a statement.
UniCredit, which last week received a green light from the European Central Bank for the operation, is offering 0.175 of newly-issued shares for each Banco BPM share.
The bid for BPM is one of several hostile bids rocking Italian banking, which underwent a painful clean-up after the 2008-2012 crisis years but has recently enjoyed record profits due to high interest rates.
(Reporting by Giulia Segreti, editing by Cristina Carlevaro)
