UniCredit CEO Orcel's 'bank of Europe' ambition tough to realise

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UniCredit Chief Executive Andrea Orcel struck a defiant tone when his bank recently topped profit forecasts for an 11th consecutive quarter.

Article originally published by Reuters. Hargreaves Lansdown is not responsible for its content or accuracy and may not share the author's views. News and research are not personal recommendations to deal. All investments can fall in value so you could get back less than you invest.

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14 Nov 2023

Investors who trusted the former Merrill Lynch and UBS banker and bought UniCredit's shares on his arrival in April 2021 are so far sitting on a 190% return. They have also pocketed 9 billion euros in buybacks and, to a lesser extent, dividends, with at least another 6.5 billion to come.

«Hopefully, we will continue to deliver...and cost the non-believers a lot of money,» Orcel, 60, said as he bid analysts farewell for another quarter.

However, his aspirations to make UniCredit the «bank of Europe» are proving trickier to realise with the CEO setting a high bar for mergers and acquisitions in the euro zone's fractured capital markets, despite having what he describes as the biggest war chest among European lenders.

After boosting profit with minimum capital deployment, using the cash to repurchase UniCredit stock and deliver the outsized returns, Orcel is now in a position to consider bolder moves such as a