Brazil's Ita� Unibanco Holding SA will control 50.5 percent of a new entity resulting from a combination of assets with Chile's CorpBanca SA , said a senior executive on Wednesday. Ita� expects to obtain $100 million a year in cost savings stemming from the creation of Ita� CorpBanca, Ricardo Marino, head of Ita�'s Latin American business, said on a conference call.Ita�, Latin America's largest bank by market value, took a key step in its overseas expansion plan on Wednesday with a deal to take control of CorpBanca SA. Under the terms of the cash and stock transaction, Ita� will pump $652 million into its Chilean unit, and then combine it with CorpBanca, according to a securities filing.The combined entity, which will be named Ita� CorpBanca, will be majority held by the S�o Paulo-based lender and also will manage the Colombian subsidiaries of both lenders, the filing added.
CorpBanca is a Chile-based bank engaged in the provision of commercial and retail banking services. Shares of BCA traded higher by 0.1% or $0.02/share to $19.39. In the past year, the shares have traded as low as $13.37 and as high as $22.80. On average, 89124 shares of BCA exchange hands on a given day and today's volume is recorded at 61749.
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