MILAN (Reuters) - UniCredit said on Thursday its board has moved up to March 27 a shareholder vote previously scheduled for April 10 to approve issuing new shares to finance a takeover bid for Banco BPM.

Italian bank UniCredit in November launched a 10 billion euro all-share offer for the smaller rival, whose market value has since reached 13.7 billion euros.

UniCredit said it was increasing to 278 million, from a previous 266 million, the maximum number of new shares to be issued to finance the bid, saying the amount covered any misalignment in share prices due to dividend payments. Based on Thursday's closing price, UniCredit's bid is worth up to 13.29 billion euros.