GENOA, Italy, Feb 14 (Reuters) - Banca Nazionale di Lavoro is more likely to be a buyer of another bank than a takeover target but no deal is currently on the horizon, the Italian bank's chairman said on Saturday.
BNL, Italy's sixth-largest bank by assets, has been widely seen as one of the country's most likely merger candidates due to its relatively small size. Talks with Tuscan-based bank Monte Paschi about a combination never came to fruition.
"If you ask me if it's more probable that we are buyers or bought, I would definitely tell you that it's more probable that we're buyers," Luigi Abete told reporters on the sidelines of a conference.
"But at the moment, we're busy carrying out our business plan," he added.
Asked about the Rome-based bank's expectations for the next two years, he said: "We are confident that we'll keep doing better, not worse, than the year before."
BNL said on Friday that its operating profit in 2003 rose more than 10 percent to 1.15 billion euros ($1.47 billion), while it expected net profit to improve from 2002.
Abete said the value of Brazilian bank Unibanco's offer to buy BNL's unit in the South American country was in line with the unit's net worth, which he said was about 60 million euros.
BNL said on Friday it had agreed to sell the unit to Unibanco in a deal to be finalised via a share exchange.
The banker also said he was not worried about a 3.0 billion euro convertible loan to Fiat which could bring hefty writedowns for it and other banks if they were to convert it into the automaker's shares at current prices.
BNL is one of eight banks which extended the loan, which expires next year, to Fiat in 2002.
Asked if the loan could be converted this year, Abete said: "No attention has been given to this idea because at the moment (Fiat) is in a good condition and it has a capacity to grow on the market as it has shown in recent months."
Abete spoke to reporters after a speech by Bank of Italy Governor Antonio Fazio at which he said the support of the country's banks were to thank for improvements at Fiat.