Last week, UniCredit announced it had taken a 9% stake in Commerzbank, confirming that half of this shareholding was acquired from the government. Commerzbank shares jumped 20% on the day UniCredit's stake was announced. A cross-border styled merger between UniCredit and Commerzbank would be more preferential than a domestic merger between Deutsche Bank and Commerzbank, according to Reint Gropp, president of the Hall Institute for Economic Research. "The German banking structure is long overdue for a consolidation process. The German bank also has less excess capital than UniCredit and therefore "cannot really afford" a takeover, Alloatti said.

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Persons: Kirill Kudryavtsev, UniCredit, Andrea Orcel, Commerzbank, Orcel, Ignacio Cerezo, Berenberg, David Benamou, Benamou, CNBC's, Arnaud Journois, Journois, Emmanuel Macron, Reint Gropp, Gropp, Filippo Alloatti, Hermes, Alloatti, We've Organizations: Afp, Getty, Bloomberg, Reuters, UniCredit, Wednesday, UBS, Investments, European, Morningstar, Commerzbank, Analysts, CNBC, Deutsche Bank, Hall Institute for Economic Research, Will Deutsche Bank, ABN Amro Locations: Frankfurt, Germany, Commerzbank, Berlin, Italian, U.S, Europe, UniCredit, Italy