UniCredit SpA's potential acquisition of PJSC Bank Otkritie Financial Corp. would create the fourth-largest bank in Russia with total assets of 4.978 trillion rubles, according to data from S&P Global Market Intelligence.

The Italian lender is said to be looking at taking over Otkritie, one of Russia's systemically important banks, Bloomberg News reported, and a potential deal would allow the bank to move past its failed talks to acquire troubled peer Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena SpA.

As of the end of September 2021, Otkritie was holding 3.780 trillion rubles of assets, while UniCredit's Russian unit, JSC UniCredit Bank, had 1.198 trillion rubles of assets.

A combined entity would also have total net customer loans worth 2.577 trillion rubles and total deposits of roughly 3.015 trillion rubles as of the end of September 2021, Market Intelligence data shows. Operating income of the two entities totaled 61.41 billion rubles in the period while their net income attributable to shareholders came in at 25.43 billion rubles.

UniCredit was not the first to show interest in Otkritie, which was rescued by the Russian government in 2017 after it collapsed due to a pile of bad debt. A number of entities including Gazprombank JSC and Region-Rossium have also expressed interest in acquiring Otkritie after the Russian central bank launched preparations for its sale in August 2021.

As of Jan. 14, US$1 was equivalent to 76.41 Russian rubles.