The British investment bank Barclays has secured access to more than 16 percent of the shares of Commerzbank, which is being courted by the major Italian bank Unicredit.

The bank holds 7.72 percent of Commerzbank shares directly and has gained access to a further 8.33 percent of the shares through derivatives, according to a mandatory announcement on Wednesday. The bank emphasized that it is not pursuing any strategic goals with Commerzbank. Rather, it was primarily concerned with the purchase of derivatives. The share packages only serve to hedge these positions, which include call and put options as well as contracts for difference (CFD).

According to insiders, Barclays is one of the banks that helped Unicredit build up the Commerzbank portfolio. The British bank was required to provide more details about its intentions because it has exceeded the 10 percent threshold with equities and derivatives. It is unclear what proportion of the position is related to Barclays' involvement with Unicredit.

In December, the Italians had announced that they now controlled around 28 percent of Commerzbank shares, with around 9.5 percent of the shares being held directly. UniCredit has secured access to a further 18.5 percent through derivatives. It was recently revealed that the US bank Citi has access to 5.1 percent of Commerzbank primarily through derivatives. It is also considered to be among the group of banks working for UniCredit.

(Report by Matthias Inverardi and Alexander Hübner, edited by Ralf Banser. If you have any questions, please contact our editorial team at berlin.newsroom@thomsonreuters.com (for politics and economics) or frankfurt.newsroom@thomsonreuters.com (for companies and markets).)