Can Andrea Orcel, Europe’s star banker, create a super-bank?
Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. The career of Andrea Orcel vividly encapsulates the recent history of European banking. At Merrill Lynch, now part of Bank of America, Mr Orcel advised on deals that formed part of the wave of mergers that crested in 2007, when a pan-European troika bought ABN AMRO, a Dutch lender.
After the financial crisis of 2007-09, grand cross-border ambitions were ditched. Mr Orcel’s next job was to run the investment-banking arm of UBS, a Swiss champion. After an abortive move to Santander, a Spanish bank, Mr Orcel landed on his loafers in the top job at UniCredit in 2021, shortly before interest-rate rises bounced the sector back to profitability.
He is justifiably credited with the Italian lender’s resurgence; its share price has quadrupled since he was appointed. Now his designs on Commerzbank, a German lender, are testing the EU’s appetite for the integrated financial system its leaders say it needs. On September 11th UniCredit said it had bought a 4.5% stake in Commerzbank from the German government, adding to its pre-existing position of the same size.
Speaking to your columnist in Prague, where Mr Orcel had travelled to address colleagues in the grounds of the Strahov Monastery, the banker says he was surprised by the explosive political reaction that followed his bank’s investment. “We bought that stake transparently, with respect to our position and our intentions, in a process that was also transparent. We had every reason to assume that this was a welcome investment." Since then UniCredit, through derivatives trades, has increased its position in the bank to just above 21%.
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