UniCredit's Andrea Orcel plays a bold hand, with Commerzbank in his sights

UniCredit's CEO Andrea Orcel revealed his hand this week as the Italian lender built a 9% stake in Commerzbank — and a takeover bid for the German rival could still be in the cards.

UniCredit faces a number of hurdles before increasing its stake after filing a request to "potentially exceed 9.9% of Commerzbank if and when necessary." Commerzbank shares soared on Wednesday when news of UniCredit's position was announced, and compounded gains on Thursday following speculation of an imminent takeover.

"All the options are on the table," Orcel said Thursday in a Bloomberg TV interview, stressing that "it's very simple to engage with all the stakeholders and see if the basis for a combination is there. And if it's not, and it is the basis for sponsoring or propelling further Commerzbank in delivering a ... transformation, then we will have delivered a lot of value for our shareholders as well."

Roughly half of UniCredit's freshly acquired stake was purchased from Commerzbank's largest shareholder, the German government, which is seeking to gradually exit its position after injecting 18.2 billion euros ($20.05 billion) to prop up the bank during the 2008 financial crisis. The authorities, which retain a 12% shareholding, last week said that around 13.15 billion euros of the rescue sum had been repaid to date.

All eyes are now on whether UniCredit will make the leap when the German government returns to offload its shares into the market.

"There is the possibility that the government sells down further. We would be interested, at the right terms," Orcel said Thursday. "There is the possibility that we buy in the open market. Or there is the possibility that we do nothing. But unless we ask for the authorization first, we don't have