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(Bloomberg) -- UniCredit SpA Chief Executive Officer Andrea Orcel said he’s not holding any live talks with Credit Agricole SA to discuss his bid for Banco BPM SpA, while signaling confidence a deal can be done.

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“We need to be quite careful with any interaction because we need to treat all shareholders the same,” Orcel said in a Bloomberg TV interview Wednesday with Francine Lacqua.

Credit Agricole is the largest shareholder in Banco BPM, and recently reinforced that position when it entered into derivatives contracts to control even more. At the same time, it has several commercial agreements with both firms, and its asset management arm depends on UniCredit to distribute products to Italian clients.

“We’ve had a long-dated partnership with Credit Agricole in custody, in asset management, in other areas,” Orcel said. “So I’m quite confident eventually they will be positive to a transaction, but it’s up to them.”

Orcel is the key player in a series of unsolicited deal proposals that are reshaping Italian and European finance more broadly. In November, he launched a takeover bid for Banco BPM to create Italy’s biggest lender. He also controls a 28% holding in Commerzbank AG, a mix of shares and derivatives, and is considering a full takeover.

Orcel said he was optimistic that he can win support for a bid once a new German government is formed.

In his last surprising move, Orcel has expanded UniCredit’s holding in Assicurazioni Generali SpA, potentially giving him more influence in future deals. Orcel said Tuesday that the bank now controls more than 5% of Generali through a mix of own holdings and investments held on behalf of clients.

He declined to comment in the interview on whether UniCredit or its clients had raised the stake to take the combined holding above that threshold.

“Honestly, I don’t think it’s very significant,” he said, adding that he has no intention of making a strategic move on Generali.

(Updates with comment in last paragraph. A previous version of the story corrected the spelling of BPM in the headline.)

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