MILAN: Italy’s UniCredit on Tuesday posted a much higher than expected profit for the first quarter and improved its outlook for the year, as it kicked off a takeover offer for Commerzbank in defiance of strong Germanopposition to a merger.

UniCredit said net profit for January-March rose 16% year-on-year to 3.2 billion euros ($3.7 billion), its highest quarterly result ever and well above an analyst consensus estimate provided by the bank of 2.7 billion euros.

UniCredit said it was improving its yearly outlook and now aimed for a net profit of at least 11 billion euros, from a previous forecast of around 11 billion euros.