Credit Agricole to Buy Italy's Banca Leonardo

France's Credit Agricole SA (ACA.FR) on Tuesday said that it has agreed to acquire wealth-management specialist Banca Leonardo SpA (BLEO.YY) for an undisclosed sum.

Credit Agricole said its subsidiary Indosuez Wealth (Europe) will initially acquire around 68% of the Italian bank from its largest shareholders, and subsequently offer the same conditions to smaller shareholders to ultimately take over 100% of the company.

The takeover will add around 5.9 billion euros ($6.85 billion) to Indosuez's existing assets under management, Credit Agricole said. Banca Leonardo's portfolio mostly comprises high net-worth individuals, it added.

The transaction is subject to approval from Italian antitrust authorities and Credit Agricole expects the deal to close in the first half of 2018.

Credit Agricole said the takeover's overall impact on the group's CET1 ratio will be below five basis points.

Write to Nathan Allen at nathan.allen@dowjones.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

November 07, 2017 01:42 ET (06:42 GMT)