UniCredit Becomes Second EU Bank With €100 Billion Valuation

UniCredit SpA became the second European Union lender to be valued at more than €100 billion ($115 billion) this year after a long recovery in the region’s financial stocks.

The Italian bank’s share price rose as much as 2.3% on Wednesday to the highest since February 2011, pushing its market capitalization to around €100.2 billion. That places the firm just behind Banco Santander SA, which has a market value of about €114 billion.

Competitors including BNP Paribas SA and Intesa Sanpaolo SpA aren’t far behind, and UBS Group AG in Switzerland and HSBC Holdings Plc in the UK each ...