The story
Bank of Genoa and establishment of Credito Italiano
The Banca di Genova was founded on 28 April 1870, with an initial capital of 3 million lire. Its shareholders included local nobility (Pallavicino and Balbi), bankers (Quartara, Polleri) and merchants (Lagorio, Dodero, Bacigalupo). In 1872, it opened the first trans-Atlantic banking business with Buenos Aires.
In 1895, in the aftermath of a major financial crisis in Italy, the Bank of Genoa was reorganized with support from Italian and foreign (French, German and Swiss) financiers, including the banks Manzi & Co. (Rome) and Kuster & Co. (Turin). Under the leadership of Giacomo Castelbolognesi, a partner at the Banca Manzi, it was combined with Milan-based Banca Vonwiller and renamed as Credito Italiano, headquartered in Milan with a paid-in capital of 14 million lire.
Transformation into UniCredito Italiano and UniCredit Banca
In late 1998 Credito Italiano was merged with Unicredito, which Unicredito was absorbed into Credito Italiano, and Credito Italiano was renamed into UniCredito Italiano. The original shareholders of Unicredito would owned about 38.46% shares of UniCredito Italiano.
In the same year Banca Popolare di Spoleto (July), Banca Cattolica di Molfetta (October) were sold, as well as Banca Popolare del Molise and Banca Popolare di Rieti were merged into Rolo Banca and UniCredit in June 1998 and 1999. In December 1999, Credito Italiano was reestablished as a subsidiary (instead of a division within the company).
On 1 July 2002, Credito Italiano, as a subsidiary, was renamed to UniCredit Banca, which received the retail bank assets from Rolo Banca, Banca CRT, Cariverona Banca, Cassamarca, Cassa di Risparmio di Trento e Rovereto and Cassa di Risparmio di Trieste. On 1 January 2003 UniCredit Private Banking and UniCredit Banca d'Impresa were spin off from UniCredit Banca. In 2010 the bank was completely absorbed into UniCredit.
From Wikipedia’s article on Credito Italiano, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.3