Bloomberg: Unicredit mulls selling stake in Pekao

Italy's Unicredit is considering selling a 50.3 percent stake in Poland’s second-largest lender among other measures to boost capital, according to Bloomberg. "UniCredit, among Europe’s least capitalized banks, is considering the sale of a stake in its online broker FinecoBank SpA as well as reviewing its holdings in Pekao and Turkey’s Yapi ve Kredi Bankasi AS," Bloomberg said quoting people with knowledge of the matter. The review comes as Polish bank valuations are hit by a new levy imposed on their assets and political debate about potentially costly plans to convert foreign currency mortgages into zloty. The WIGBank index grouping 15 Warsaw-listed lenders dropped to a price to book value of just above one in January, the lowest since 2009. It’s now trading at 1.1 times, compared with 1.6 times a year ago, Bloomberg noted.