Head of Italy's UniCredit bank to step down

UniCredit, Italy's biggest bank by assets, announced Tuesday that its CEO Federico Ghizzoni is stepping down, after a board meeting decided it was time for a change at the helm.

The announcement came two weeks after UniCredit, which like other banks is feeling the pinch from super-low interest rates and volatile financial markets, announced first quarter net profit down by 21 percent.

An extraordinary board meeting on Tuesday "agreed that the conditions are right for a change at the head of the group," the bank said in a statement.

Ghizzoni has led UniCredit since 2010. The board hailed the "very high quality" of his work and said he would remain in place until a successor is found.

Among the names being touted as possible replacement are Marco Morelli of Bank of America-Merrill Lynch, Flavio Valeri of Deutsche Bank, Mediobanca chief Alberto Nagel and Jean-Pierre Mustier, a former director of UniCredit's investment bank.

UniCredit shares rose by around five percent on the Milan bourse on Tuesday, ahead of the announcement of Ghizzoni's departure which had been expected.

UniCredit has been the subject of speculation in the Italian media with some shareholders unhappy about the bank's share price and capitalisation problems.

Over the past six months the bank's shares have lost 46 percent while the FTSE Italia All-Share Banks index as a whole is down 38 percent amid concerns over bad loans and capitalisation problems.