The CEO of Banco BPM, Giuseppe
Castagna, wrote a letter to staff Wednesday saying there would
be estimated job losses of at least 6,000 if Italy's
second-biggest bank UniCredit succeeds in its hostile takeover
bid for the country's third-biggest.
Raising an alarm on the employment implications of a merger with
UniCredit, Castagna said: "The cost synergies estimated by the
bidder, equal to over a third of Banco BPM's cost base, are also
of great concern, which can be estimated to mean staff cuts of
over 6,000."
Castagna also "no to those who do not take into account our
value" and stressed that "we are a large autonomous bank, and we
move forward alone".
He said: "We are a large autonomous bank, Italian with a strong
vocation of closeness to the territories and to SMEs, the
backbone of our country.
"We must continue in this direction, remaining in the path we
have traced and continuing to do our job well, as we have always
done.
"This is the right path to grow alone and not become the object
of operations that do not take into account the value expressed
by our Bank today and, even more so, in the near future".
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