UniCredito CEO Alessandro Profumo (left) with HVB chief Dieter Rampl in Munich on Monday. (Reuters)

Milan/Munich, June 13 (Reuters): Italy’s UniCredito and HVB Group of Germany have agreed to proceed with Europe’s biggest-ever cross-border banking takeover.

“This is a significant day for HVB and UniCredito,” HVB chief Dieter Rampl said after his bank’s supervisory board approved the deal to form Europe’s ninth-biggest bank. “We are creating the first truly European bank.”

In Milan, UniCredito executive Alessandro Profumo confirmed the board of the Italian lender had also agreed to the deal. Neither Rampl nor Profumo commented on details of the agreement.

On Saturday, sources familiar with the situation said the all-share deal would value HVB at over 15 billion euros ($18.35 billion), making it bigger than the 2004 acquisition by Spain’s Santander Central Hispano of Abbey National in Britain.

The takeover will give UniCredito market leadership in central Europe via HVB's Vienna-listed Bank Austria Creditanstalt, a retail network in Bavaria and northern Germany, HVB's corporate and real-estate loan book and Activest fund arm.