Following the press release issued on August 3rd 2016, UniCredit Business Integrated Solutions (Ubis) and SIA have closed the sale of the card processing activities in Italy, Germany and Austria for a consideration of €500 million in cash (equal to a P/EBITDA of approximately 12x) on December 23th 2016.

The transaction generates a consolidated net capital gain of around €440 million for UniCredit in 2016, with an expected positive impact on the fully loaded CET1 ratio of about 12 bps.

At the same time the Group has agreed to enter into a ten year outsourcing contract with SIA for the provision of card processing services. The deal allows UniCredit to exit a non-core activity while retaining access to a high quality service and the economies of scale which SIA may achieve.

The sale of the card processing activities is part of the strategic approach first announced on 11th July 2016 and further in line with the key objectives of the Transform 2019 plan presented at the Investor day on 13th December; of which one is to focus on strengthening and optimizing capital for the bank.

PricewaterhouseCoopers Advisory and HSBC assisted as financial advisors and DLA Piper as legal advisor.

Source: Unicredit statement