The shareholder structure of Frankfurt-based Commerzbank has remained "largely unchanged" despite a takeover bid launched by Italian banking giant UniCredit, the German bank said on Thursday.
"So far, institutional investors have only tendered slightly more than 1% of Commerzbank shares, with around 0.05% of shares tendered coming from retail investors and the rest being linked to banks," Commerzbank said in a statement.
"The remaining free float is made up of several hundred institutional shareholders and more than 500,000 retail investors."
Commerzbank said its statement on Thursday was intended to counter "contradictory statements by UniCredit" after UniCredit chief executive Andrea Orcel recently claimed that almost all major active investors had sold or tendered their Commerzbank shares.
UniCredit launched an official takeover bid in early May, offering 0.485 of its own shares for each Commerzbank share. For much of the offer period, the implied value was below Commerzbank's market price.
On Friday, the Italian bank said UniCredit said it has now secured nearly 40% of the lender's shares, extending the exchange offer for all outstanding Commerzbank shares until July 3.
UniCredit said shareholders tendered 12.51% of Commerzbank shares during the initial offer period, which ran from May 5 to June 16.
Combined with the 26.77% stake it already held before launching the offer, UniCredit's shareholding would rise to 39.28%, making it by far the largest shareholder in Germany's second-largest listed bank.
The Milan-based lender also has access to more than 3% of Commerzbank shares through options and holds additional financial instruments linked to the bank. Including those positions, UniCredit said its total economic exposure amounts to 42.5%.
