Commerzbank shares leap 17% after UniCredit buys 4.5% stake from the German authorities

Commerzbank shares jumped on market open on Wednesday, after Italian financial institution UniCredit acquired a 4.5% stake within the Frankfurt-based lender from the German authorities.

Commerzbank inventory was up 17.5% at 9:37 a.m. London time.

The stake acquisition marks step one in Berlin’s exit from its place within the German lender. The German authorities stated it had offered round 53.1 million shares — or a roughly 4.49% tranche out of its 16.49% complete shareholding — in Commerzbank for roughly 702 million euros ($775 million) to UniCredit.

Even at a lowered 12% place, the German authorities stated it stays Commerzbank’s largest shareholder. Berlin has held its stake within the lender ever since injecting 18.2 billion euros to rescue Commerzbank throughout the 2008 monetary disaster. Round 13.15 billion euros of that sum has been repaid thus far, the federal government said last week.

“Commerzbank has proven that it’s as soon as once more standing by itself two ft. With this the primary partial sale of the funding will mark the completion of the profitable stabilization of the funding Financial institution and thus the federal authorities’s exit,” stated Eva Grunwald, managing director of the federal finance company.

In a separate assertion, UniCredit stated it had taken a 9% stake in Commerzbank, confirming that half of this shareholding was acquired from the federal government.

“To take care of flexibility, UniCredit will submit regulatory filings for authorization to probably exceed 9.9% of Commerzbank if and when needed,” UniCredit stated. The financial institution’s personal Milan-listed inventory was up 2% at 09:37 a.m. in London.

Commerzbank didn’t instantly reply to a CNBC request for remark.

Additionally on Wednesday, the German lender said Commerzbank chief Manfred Knof will fulfil however not search to resume his time period after the top of his contract in December 2025. The financial institution will start the method of discovering a successor.

The most recent stake transaction has revived hypothesis over whether or not UniCredit, which is already current in Germany by way of lender HypoVereinsbank, will pursue an acquisition of Commerzbank to create a German banking powerhouse as some analysts see scope for consolidation in European markets.

Earlier this yr, market whispers had penciled the chance that Germany’s largest lender, Deutsche Financial institution, would pursue a tie-up with its home counterpart. The 2 German banks had briefly pursued, then abruptly deserted, plans to create a European megabank in 2019. In January, Deutsche Financial institution CEO Christian Stitching dismissed the potential for a fusion in January, disclaiming that merger and acquisition operations weren’t a precedence for his group on the time.

Against this, UniCredit has been energetic on mergers and acquisitions in latest months and in July announced its acquisition of Belgian digital financial institution Aion and its cloud platform Vodeno for 370 million euros. That got here as UniCredit declared a report first-half efficiency and a 6% annual progress in internet revenues to six.3 billion euros within the second quarter.

CNBC has reached out to UniCredit for remark over potential takeover intentions.