MILAN (Reuters) – UniCredit said on Friday it was ending a non-life insurance venture with UnipolSAI as it strengthened its relationship with Germany’s Allianz, a top shareholder and insurance partner.
UniCredit said it would buy the 51% stake the Italian insurer owned in their local joint-venture Incontra, and then sell 50% of Incontra to Allianz, thereby replacing UnipolSAI with Allianz as a partner.
Taking over at UniCredit after the bank underwent years of restructuring, Chief Executive Andrea Orcel has been working to build new sources of revenue. He wants in particular to increase the weight of fees, such as those banks earn on the sale of insurance products.
Though UniCredit and Allianz will each own half of Incontra, the German insurer will have control thanks to shareholder agreements, UniCredit said in a note.
The bank said it expected to close the transaction by the end of the year with negligible impact on its capital base.
UniCredit and Allianz have partnered in ‘bancassurance’ since 1996. In January 2022 they announced a framework agreement that strengthened their ties in Italy, Germany and central and eastern Europe.
At that time Allianz and UniCredit extended their partnership in Italy to 2027 under a deal that gives the bank the option to bring the insurance business in house from next year. Orcel has said that whether it does so will depend on the regulatory backdrop.
“This new agreement is fully coherent with the 2022 arrangements between UniCredit and Allianz,” the bank said, adding that it simplified the set-up and added flexibility.
Allianz is UniCredit’s second biggest shareholder with a 3.6% stake.
Earlier this year Allianz openly backed UniCredit’s new pay policy, which entails a 30% pay rise for Orcel and top executives if they outperform targets, though some funds managed by Allianz voted against the policy.
(Reporting by Valentina Za, editing by Gavin Jones)
