UniCredit Advances Vote on Banco BPM Bid, Increases Share Issuance Limit

UniCredit's board has rescheduled a shareholder vote to approve issuing new shares for a takeover bid on Banco BPM from April 10 to March 27. In November, UniCredit proposed a 10 billion euro all-share offer for Banco BPM, whose market value has risen to 13.7 billion euros since. The bank plans to increase the maximum number of new shares to 278 million (up from 266 million) to cover any share price discrepancies resulting from dividend payments. UniCredit's bid values Banco BPM shares at 8.36 euros each, based on UniCredit's closing price and the proposed exchange ratio of 0.175, compared to Banco BPM's closing price of 9.04 euros.