MILAN, Jan 18 (Reuters) - UniCredit Chief Executive Andrea Orcel on Thursday dismissed as "noise" a newspaper report that his bank could be behind a stakebuilding in Popolare di Sondrio and said it was not buying shares in the smaller rival.

"Every time I sit in an interview there is something. Yesterday it was Commerzbank, today Popolare di Sondrio... We're very disciplined in saying: is it strategic? And does it fit in terms of valuation?," Orcel told Bloomberg television, referring to a report published on Thursday in Italy's Il Sole 24 Ore.

"We know what is strategic, but valuations are misaligned. So there is a lot of... noise of people who try to create transactions but the number don't fit." (Reporting by Valentina Za, editing by Giulia Segreti)