Hard for an Italian bank to buy SocGen: Prodi

LONDON (Reuters) - It would be hard for an Italian bank to consider buying France's wounded Societe Generale, given recent purchases they are digesting, Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi said ahead of a summit on Tuesday.

"I have to say that Italian (banks) have recently made huge strides in acquisitions," Prodi said, adding it was therefore likely they were occupied in integrating their latest buys.

Italy's biggest bank, UniCredit, said last week it did not see any deals in the short-term as rumors circulated it could revive its interest in SocGen, now that massive losses blamed on a rogue trader have hit the French bank's market value.

UniCredit, one of Europe's leading banks after it bought smaller Italian bank Capitalia last year, said in April 2007 it had explored "growth opportunities" with SocGen.

UniCredit, which has a market value of about 67 billion euros ($99.05 billion), "categorically denied" a report earlier this month it might be interested in buying Merrill Lynch, the $47 billion U.S. investment bank.

UniCredit's biggest domestic rival, Intesa Sanpaolo, was formed from the merger of Banca Intesa and Sanpaolo IMI at the start of 2007.

Prodi, speaking ahead of a summit with France, Britain and Germany, said he did not see a chain reaction from the difficulties at SocGen, adding the London meeting would discuss the issue "because we need to make such cases more difficult".

France warned foreign banks on Tuesday not to try to grab control of SocGen, but shares in the bank spiked higher on takeover speculation, which fingered BNP Paribas as a possible bidder.

SocGen shares ended up 10.4 percent at 78.45 euros, while UniCredit shares closed down 1.17 percent at 4.989 euros.

(Reporting by Giselda Vagnoni, writing by Jo Winterbottom, editing by Will Waterman)