Awards for Excellence country winners – Romania

Romania was the place of perhaps the most important bank M&A deal to be announced in 2023: the merger of the local units of Italian group UniCredit and Greece’s Alpha Bank. The deal promised to allow UniCredit, as the owner of 90% of the merged entity, to supplant Societe Generale-owned BRD as the country’s third-biggest bank.

Even on a standalone basis, UniCredit’s 2023 numbers in Romania show strong financial performance and growing confidence. The Alpha Bank deal shows UniCredit’s commitment to Romania and central and eastern Europe and a degree of resolve on the part of the group leadership to take part in M&A opportunities. The merger, however, was still pending regulatory approvals and legal completion in early 2024.

For now, Romania’s Banca Transilvania retains by far the biggest position in Romania, with a net income that is about twice as much as that of either UniCredit or BRD at L3 billion ($640 million) on a consolidated basis.