MILAN — UniCredit has called a shareholder meeting for Dec. 4 to put new governance proposals to the vote, including removing a 5 percent cap on voting rights and allowing the board to select its own candidates to be directors. The proposed changes come at a time of renewed merger speculation following a report that Italy's largest bank by assets told Berlin recently it was interested in eventually merging with state-backed Commerzbank. "This amendment would align UniCredit's governance with the principle that the voting system be proportional to the capital invested, in line with international best practice," the bank said in a statement on Thursday about the removal of the 5 percent cap. UniCredit's CEO Jean-Pierre Mustier, appointed just over a year ago to turn the bank around, announced in December that he wanted to shake up the lender's governance. Advertisement Continue reading the main storyIn a statement, the bank said it would ask an extraordinary general meeting to give its board the power to present its own list of candidates for election as directors and to remove the limit on voting rights.

Source: New York Times September 21, 2017 18:40 UTC