By Giovanni Legorano

ROME--Italian bank UniCredit SpA said late Thursday it has concluded successfully a EUR13 billion ($13.74 billion) rights issue, one of the biggest transactions of this kind ever launched in Europe and a key plank of the lender's strategic plan aimed at shoring up its finances and making it more profitable.

The bank, which is Italy's largest by assets, said in December it planned to sell fresh shares, cut thousands of jobs and shed a large chunk of bad loans as part of the overhaul.

Earlier this month, after launching the share sale, the bank posted a loss of EUR13.56 billion in the last quarter of 2016, compared with a profit of EUR153 million in the same period the previous year, reflecting the clean-up of its balance sheet foreseen in the plan.

The rights issue was guaranteed by a pool of banks that agreed to buy any unsold shares and was slated to be completed by March 10.

Write to Giovanni Legorano at giovanni.legorano@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

February 23, 2017 15:11 ET (20:11 GMT)

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