The Elephant Bank, as the press affectionately named UniCredit BulBank, was born on the roof of the UniCredit headquarters in central Sofia on April 27 2007. The merger between BulBank, HVB Biochim and Hebros has been on the tip of journalistic pens for some time now, which led the brains in the Media Monitoring and Analysis Group of Aii Data Processing to dig deeper into the coverage and find out what was actually said. The analysis parameters constrained the coverage to all nationally available publications mentioning the UniCredit Bulbank merger during the month of April 2007.

The merger generated 37 articles during the analysed period, with Banker, Monitor and 24 Chassa emerging as the most prolific publications, releasing seven, five and four articles, respectively. Neutrality in tone of coverage was not maintained by the top three papers, as each of them published two articles carrying a positive slant towards the UniCredit merger. Dnevnik and Sega were the only publications to have three or more articles on the subject that maintained a neutral tone towards the bank. In total, 10 of the 37 articles included in the study carried a favourable outlook towards UniCredit Bulbank and the remainder was neutral. No negative coverage of the merger appeared in the Bulgarian national press.

The peaks in coverage were on April 4 and April 28 2007, with eight articles on the topic appearing on each of those days. The first peak was driven by the announcement of the merger date and the upcoming changes to the IBANs of the three banks, while the second was directly related to the birth of the mega bank the day before. The decision by Bulgarian National Bank to give the go-ahead on the merger generated eight articles over the weekend of April 14 to 16, distributed evenly over the two days.

The merger was the primary focus of 60 per cent of the analysed coverage. Eight out of the 10 favourable articles enjoyed by UniCredit Bulbank were focused on the merger, while the remaining two addressed the launch of an internship programme by the bank and the announcement by Global Finance that BulBank is the best bank in Bulgaria. Of the 15 articles that did not focus primarily on the merger, five devoted more than half of their editorial space on the topic, with the remaining space addressing the bank’s product range or HR practices. The remaining 10 articles, which mentioned the merger in passing, were focused primarily on UniCredit’s products and marketing activities.

While the merger did not make it to the front page of any of the publications in this study, seven of the analysed articles enjoyed front-of-section presence. Dnevnik gave due prominence to the bank, as all three articles appearing in the daily were in the lead of the financial section.

The name of UniCredit BulBank appeared in 20 headlines and six sub-headlines, thus providing the bank with 70 per cent headline prominence within the analysed coverage. Banker, with five headline mentions, 24 Chassa, Dnevnik and Monitor, publishing three headline mentions each, contributed most actively to the bank’s headline presence during April. Five of the 11 articles that did not have UniCredit’s name in their headlines, mentioned the bank in the first paragraph of their articles, thus increasing the effectiveness of the bank’s overall presence in the Bulgarian media.

UniCredit BulBank enjoyed 89 per cent exclusivity in the coverage related to the merger. The remaining 11 per cent of articles carried mentions of DZI Bank, Societe Generale, Raiffeisenbank, EuroBank EFG and CommerzBank. Bank Austria Creditanstalt, the bank that will oversee the activities of the Bulgarian UniCredit Bulbank, appeared in nine of the 37 analysed articles.

Fourteen of the articles analysed carried a mention of a spokesperson from UniCredit BulBank. Levon Hampartzoumian, the CEO of UniCredit BulBank, was the primary spokesperson in 13 of these articles. Peter Harold, former chairman and CEO of HVB Bank Biochim and Hebros Bank, and Andrea Casini, former chief operating officer of Bulbank, enjoyed three and two mentions in the press, respectively. The only article that did not mention Hampartzoumian appeared in The Sofia Echo and reported that landowners and farmers will get special loans through USAID and UniCredit. The article mentioned the merger in passing and the UniCredit BulBank spokesperson there was Slavka Vulkova.

Nine of the 37 articles carried a photograph or another visual image relating to UniCredit BulBank. Seven of those were photos of the news conference held on the rooftop of the UniCredit BulBank headquarters, announcing the merger. The remaining two were photos of Hampartzoumian.

The most prolific journalists writing about the UniCredit BulBank merger during April were Elitsa Grancharova of The Sofia Echo, Miroslava Mitova of Monitor, Nevena Mircheva of Standart and Sofia Terziiska of 24 Chassa. Each of these journalists contributed two articles on the topic.

Overall, the UniCredit BulBank merger enjoyed a rather positive presence in the Bulgarian national media during the analysed period. As expected, the vast majority of coverage focused primarily on the merger, with the bank’s products emerging as the second most prolific topic in the merger-related coverage. The absence of negative coverage emphasises the media’s positive outlook on the creation of a mega-bank in Bulgaria and even “the bank-elephant” statements carried a positive slant. If the bank manages to maintain such a positive presence in the Bulgarian media landscape, they may soon not only be the largest bank in Bulgaria, but also the most liked.

* Ivaylo Pentchev is manager of the Media Monitoring and Analysis Group at
Aii Data Processing,
aiidatapro.com