"There are several possibilities to set the bank up in a leaner way and to centralise some of the non-customer facing tasks at a group level," Ghizzoni told Handelsblatt in an interview released ahead of publication on Wednesday. Ghizzoni wants to present the details of a restructuring plan for HVB by the end of the year, Handelsblatt reported, adding that the German unit has a cost-income ratio of 75 percent, much higher than its parent on 60 percent. Ghizzoni said Unicredit, which has faced investor jitters over its capital levels, has no plans to sell HVB or to list it, a decade after it took over the German bank. "That would be a mistake. After all, HVB is a strong bank in the strongest economy in Europe. So it would not be logical to leave just this market," he said. (Reporting by Emma Thomasson, editing by William Hardy)
Unicredit's CEO Ghizzoni says the bank plans to move some functions of its German unit, Hypovereinsbank, to Milan in an effort to cut costs, with a restructuring plan on how this will be achieved to be presented by the end of the year. Ghizzoni also confirmed that there is no plan to sell the German unit.