ROME/MILAN, May 15 (Reuters) – Italy’s banking and business
community responded angrily on Tuesday to Moody’s mass downgrade
of Italian banks, calling the move irresponsible and an assault
on the austerity-hit country as it struggles with an economic
crisis.

Italian banks, already battling with shrinking demand and
soaring bad loans, suffered a further blow as the U.S. agency
slashed the credit ratings on 26 local lenders, adding to their
difficulties in raising funds.

MILAN, May 13 (Reuters) – UniCredit’s
newly-elected chairman Giuseppe Vita will seek to be a brige
between Italian and German cultures in Italy’s biggest bank by
assets as the lender attemps to turn the corner after a year of
massive losses.

Sicilian-born Vita, 77, is a trained doctor who moved to
Germany in the early 1960s thanks to a university scholarship.
He had plans to move on to the United States, but chose instead
to stay in the euro zone’s largest economy and spent four
decades climbing up the ladder at pharmaceutical giant Schering.

MILAN, May 11 (Reuters) – Generali, Europe’s No. 3
insurer, posted a better-than-expected quarterly profit on
improved performance at its non-life and financial businesses, a
sign earnings were stabilising after a difficult 2011.

Generali, Italy’s largest insurer, said on Friday
first-quarter net profit fell 8 percent to 567 million euros
($735 million), compared with the average Thomson Reuters
I/B/E/S forecast of 500 million euros.

MILAN (Reuters) – Will Italians be the best-dressed squad of the London 2012 Olympic Games?

The Italy team is pinning its hopes of striking gold in the style stakes on fashion guru Giorgio Armani, and his 50-piece Olympic collection.

MILAN, May 11 (Reuters) – Will Italians be the best-dressed
squad of the London 2012 Olympic Games?

The Italy team is pinning its hopes of striking gold in the
style stakes on fashion guru Giorgio Armani, and his 50-piece
Olympic collection.

MILAN (Reuters) – Net profit at UniCredit (CRDI.MI: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), Italy’s biggest bank by assets, soared above forecasts in the first quarter, helped by hefty trading gains on its own bonds as well as improved profitability in its recession-hit Italian home market.

UniCredit reported net profit of 914 million euros ($1.18 bln), above the bank’s analysts’ consensus of 805 million euros, signaling it was starting to turn the corner after shoring up its capital base in January via a 7.5 billion euro cash call.