MILAN (Reuters) - The head of UniCredit (MI:CRDI) repeated in a letter to staff on Wednesday that Italy's biggest bank had no intention of engaging in merger and acquisition deals following Intesa's (MI:ISP) blitz move to buy rival UBI Banca (MI:UBI).
"Let me reconfirm we have NO intention to do any M&A and we will not be drawn into any transactions," CEO Jean Pierre Mustier said in a letter dated Feb. 19.
After shelving plan for a cross-border merger deal which he says is not possible given the sector's depressed market valuations, Mustier has been focusing on boosting investor returns through a combination of dividends and share buybacks.