UniCredit’s Orcel takes charge of Italy in domestic drive

Andrea Orcel, then UBS main govt, leaves after attending a British isles parliamentary inquiry into Libor interest costs in London January 9, 2013. REUTERS/Olivia Harris

MILAN, July 6 (Reuters) – UniCredit CEO Andrea Orcel has taken direct duty for running the Italian bank’s domestic business, an interior memo showed, following the board eliminated Niccolo Ubertalli as its head.

Ubertalli’s surprise ousting arrives all over a 12 months immediately after he was appointed as head of Italy and follows the latest exits of other prolonged-standing senior UniCredit executives.

Orcel, former head of expenditure banking at Swiss financial institution UBS (UBSG.S), took over as UniCredit’s chief executive in April 2021 and set about reshuffling its senior administration group, which include by bringing in previous UBS colleagues.

Ubertalli, who experienced been tipped as an internal applicant to the CEO part when Orcel bought the position, did not quickly reply to a request of remark.

UniCredit, which is Italy’s second premier financial institution, is continue to undergoing a period of inside adjustment beneath the new leadership workforce, three folks with awareness of the issue reported.

The board’s choice to strip Ubertalli of his job with instant impact follows friction about tactic, the people today mentioned, requesting anonymity specified the sensitivity of the subject.

As Italy-primarily based group CEO, Orcel currently performs responsibilities that in other international locations the place UniCredit operates are completed by local CEOs, such as conferences with big corporate clients or federal government ministers, a further two men and women near to the subject claimed.

Reversing a determination by his predecessor to operate Italy as section of a Western Europe business banking division together with Germany and Austria, Orcel experienced entrusted it to Ubertalli, who was then the co-head of Central Jap Europe.

Soon after Jean Pierre Mustier’s initiatives to length UniCredit from its credit card debt-laden home current market, which the previous CEO noticed as a source of vulnerability, Orcel had promised alternatively a renewed focus on Italy and has been performing to regain current market share.

“We are ready to even more enhance Italy’s existence at a team level, enabling it to go quicker in its transformation … even though navigating the envisioned unstable atmosphere,” the internal memo seen by Reuters said.

“As these types of, the board has resolved to make the role of Head of Italy portion of the team CEO’s immediate remit,” it extra.

The final decision above Ubertalli follows the departure of UniCredit’s Chief Operating Officer Ranieri de Marchis in May perhaps and that of Andrea Maffezzoni, UniCredit’s head of overall performance administration and previous M&A main in June.

“The achievement of Italy is essential to the achievement of our team … Bringing our Italian business below the remit of the group CEO will cement this alignment,” Chairman Pier Carlo Padoan and Orcel stated in the information to personnel.

Remo Taricani, the head of UniCredit’s commercial network in Italy, will help Orcel by getting to be deputy head of Italy.

Reporting by Valentina Za Modifying by Emelia Sithole-Matarise and Alexander Smith

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