Profits up, jobs down
It is now official - Unicredito is taking over HVB and will thus become the seventh-biggest lender in Europe. The E19 (zł.76.6) billion operation of bringing the two giants together will start in early autumn, and this is also when UniCredito will issue new shares for HVB shareholders.
While Italians are cheering at the prospect of E1 (zł.4) billion worth of annual synergy savings, bank employees all over Europe are worried about their future, as the merger is undoubtedly going to translate into massive layoffs. In the immediate future there appears to be no good news for Poles as the redundancies are expected to be the highest in the Central European countries, where on average nine percent of all the cuts will take place.
Polish banks Pekao SA, owned by UniCredito, and BPH, a member of the HVB group, together employ 26,000 people, of which 2,500 can expect to lose their jobs. In the Polish banking sector, the merger will bring into existence the biggest lender in the country with an almost 50 percent market share. But in order to create a uniform institution, many overlapping branches will have to be closed down.
"Because of a much smaller merger between BPH and PBK banks that took place in 2001, 4,500 people were made redundant. It is hard to believe now it will only be 2,500," Alicja Jędrych, BPH trade union representative told Gazeta Wyborcza. Indeed, Merrill Lynch and UBS analyst estimate the number will reach 6,000.
Łukasz Górski, banking sector analyst with Deutsche Bank, underlines that the merger will be even more difficult because of differing corporate cultures: BPH being a more aggressive, development orientated institution and Pekao BP drawing on its past position.
While Italians are cheering at the prospect of E1 (zł.4) billion worth of annual synergy savings, bank employees all over Europe are worried about their future, as the merger is undoubtedly going to translate into massive layoffs. In the immediate future there appears to be no good news for Poles as the redundancies are expected to be the highest in the Central European countries, where on average nine percent of all the cuts will take place.
Polish banks Pekao SA, owned by UniCredito, and BPH, a member of the HVB group, together employ 26,000 people, of which 2,500 can expect to lose their jobs. In the Polish banking sector, the merger will bring into existence the biggest lender in the country with an almost 50 percent market share. But in order to create a uniform institution, many overlapping branches will have to be closed down.
"Because of a much smaller merger between BPH and PBK banks that took place in 2001, 4,500 people were made redundant. It is hard to believe now it will only be 2,500," Alicja Jędrych, BPH trade union representative told Gazeta Wyborcza. Indeed, Merrill Lynch and UBS analyst estimate the number will reach 6,000.
Łukasz Górski, banking sector analyst with Deutsche Bank, underlines that the merger will be even more difficult because of differing corporate cultures: BPH being a more aggressive, development orientated institution and Pekao BP drawing on its past position.
