MILAN: Italy's biggest bank UniCredit, in which Libyan authorities hold a 7.5 percent stake, said Monday it is "watching the situation" in light of new UN sanctions against the regime of Moamer Kadhafi.
Last year the bank's chief executive was sacked for failing to inform shareholders that Libyan authorities had built up their stake to become the largest single shareholder in the bank.
"We are closely watching the situation also in the light of recent UN decision," a bank spokesman said Monday.
On Saturday the UN Security Council imposed sanctions against Kadhafi in a new bid to halt the bloodshed in Libya while ordering a crimes against humanity investigation into his crackdown on opponents.
A vote by the 15-nation body at a solemn Saturday night meeting called for a travel ban and assets freeze against Kadhafi and his family and associates and an arms embargo against Libya, where the UN says more than 1,000 people have been killed.
Altogether Libya holds 7.582 percent of UniCredit, including the holdings of the Libyan Investment Authority and the Libyan Central Bank, worth a total of around 2.7 billion euros ($3.7 billion)
The bank will have to decide whether the Security Council decision will require it to freeze the Libyan-owned share of the bank.
The mounting Libyan involvement in the bank provoked a crisis within the bank last September when the bank's chief Alessandro Profumo was ousted following a rebellion by shareholders over his management style, poor earnings and controversial dealings with the Libyan investors.
The governor of the Libyan central bank, Farhat Omar Bengdara, is a vice chairman on the bank's board of directors.
Profumo had been chief executive at Unicredit since 1997 and built up the bank into a major European player through a massive acquisition programme.
Unicredit is far from the only Italian concern in which Libya now has a stake.
Tripoli holds two percent of the aeronautics and defence group Finmeccanica and 7.5 percent of Juventus football club as well as 0.5 percent of Italian oil giant ENI.
Finmeccanica head Pier Francesco Guarguaglini, quoted by the ANSA news agency, said he was not concerned as it is the Libyan Investment Authority which own stock in his company "and the LIA is not linked to Kadhafi or the Libyan government."
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