Itaú Unibanco buys CorpBanca for $3bn Brazil's largest private sector bank, Itaú Unibanco, took its most ambitious step yet towards becoming a regional financial powerhouse on Wednesday with the acquisition of Chile's CorpBanca. In a deal totalling nearly $3bn, Itaú will gain control of CorpBanca in exchange for injecting $652m of capital and merging its Chilean and Colombian units into the combined entity. "Through this alliance, we hope to consolidate our regional platform," said Ricardo Marino, vice-president of Itaú Unibanco for Latin America. The deal marks Itaú"s biggest foreign foray as it seeks to become the first Latin American bank that can claim to have a comprehensive regional presence. Expansion into the faster-growing Pacific coast economies of South America will allow the bank to diversify at a time when Brazil's economy is slowing down. "This is a transformational transaction for Itaú outside of Brazil," said Mark Rosen, head of LatAm investment banking at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, which was the lead adviser to CorpBanca. This is by far the biggest move they have made outside of Brazil so far, it makes Itaú the fourth-largest bank in Chile and the fifth-largest in Colombia. Under the deal, Itaú will receive 172bn new shares in CorpBanca and will hold a 33.85 per cent stake in the institution. Once the merger is effected, Itaú will sign a shareholder's agreement with CorpBanca's present majority shareholder, CorpGroup, controlled by the billionaire Alvaro Saieh and his family. The controlling shareholder group will hold a 66.5 per cent stake in the bank in Chile and 66.4 per cent of the institution in Colombia. Itaú, in turn, will have overall 50.5 per cent control of the bank through the shareholder`s agreement. Corpbanca had a market value of $4.37bn, based on Wednesday's closing price, according to Bloomberg data. While the acquisition will strengthen Itaú"s diversification in Latin America, all eyes will be on the bank`s strategy in the region's other economic powerhouse, Mexico. Would-be entrants into the Mexican market, which is seen growing more quickly than that of Brazil as the US economy recovers, have been frustrated by a scarcity of banks available for acquisition.