MILAN (Reuters) – Shares of UniCredit (CRDI.MI: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), Italy’s biggest bank by assets, sank for a third day as investors punished the stock after the lender priced a 7.5 billion-euro ($9.5 billion) rights issue at a deep discount.

The shares closed down 11.1 percent at 3.98 euros on Friday, the last trading day before the new share offer takes effect on Monday, extending losses over the past three days to 37 percent.

MILAN, Jan 6 (Reuters) – Shares in UniCredit
(CRDI.MI: Quote, Profile, Research), Italy’s biggest bank by assets, dived for a third day
as investors punished the stock after the lender priced a
7.5-billion euro ($9.54 billion) rights issue at a deep
discount.

The shares closed down 11.1 percent at 3.98 euros on Friday,
the last trading day before the new share offer takes effect on
Monday, extending losses over the past three days to 37 percent.

MILAN, Jan 4 (Reuters) – UniCredit launched
a 7.5 billion euro ($9.8 billion) capital increase meant to
shore up its ravaged balance sheet at a significant discount,
sending its shares down as investors worried about the high
dilution of their holdings.

Shares in Italy’s largest bank by assets, which like many
European banks must raise funds to meet new stringent capital
requirements, dropped 9 percent after it detailed an issue that
is much more sharply discounted than those of its peers.

MILAN (Reuters) – Fiat SpA’s (FIA.MI: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) five car factories in Italy are all in the red and its profits now driven squarely by U.S. affiliate Chrysler, meaning a further scaling back of its 100-year-old Italian operations — if not a complete pullout — now looks increasingly likely.

The company’s quixotic chief executive Sergio Marchionne says it would be unthinkable for the company not to have the interests of its 80,000 employees and its homeland at heart.

ROME/MILAN, Nov 28 (Reuters) – The foundation which
controls Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena is
renegotiating with creditors the terms of 1.1 billion euros of
loans, backed by Monte Paschi shares, as it seeks to keep
control of Italy’s third biggest lender.

The foundation, which owns 48.4 percent of the Tuscany-based
bank (MPS) and which was forced to take out the loans to
underwrite two capital increases since 2008, said on Monday
talks with the banks were at an advanced stage.

MELEGNANO, Italy, Nov 28 (Reuters) – On a cold and
foggy Sunday morning, a battle for the hearts and minds of
Italian voters is quietly under way in the medieval square of
this town on the outskirts of Milan.

“Bye Bye Silvio!” reads a giant billboard put up by the
leftist SEL party, whose leader has reluctantly thrown his
weight behind Mario Monti’s emergency government, tasked with
rescuing Italy from financial disaster.

MILAN/LUGANO (Reuters) – Marco, a 31-year-old from southern Italy, has never set foot in neighboring Switzerland. Now he’s thinking of moving his family’s cheese-making business there.

Growing fear about the impact of the eurozone crisis in Italy is making Switzerland — traditional banking safe haven for the world’s wealthy — increasingly attractive to ordinary men and women nervous about the impact of austerity measures and even the possible collapse of the eurozone.

MILAN/LUGANO, Nov 23 (Reuters) – Marco, a 31-year-old
from southern Italy, has never set foot in neighbouring
Switzerland. Now he’s thinking of moving his family’s
cheese-making business there.

Growing fear about the impact of the eurozone crisis in
Italy is making Switzerland — traditional banking safe haven
for the world’s wealthy — increasingly attractive to ordinary
men and women nervous about the impact of austerity measures and
even the possible collapse of the eurozone.

MILAN, Nov 23 (Reuters) – Pressure mounted on
Finmeccanica Chairman Pier Francesco Guarguaglini to quit on
Wednesday over a corruption probe that has engulfed Italy’s
defence conglomerate and exposed a growing rift in the company’s
top ranks.

The defence group, controlled by Italy’s Treasury, is
involved in a long-running probe centering on accusations of
false invoices and slush funds that were allegedly used to bribe
politicians.

MILAN/FRANKFURT (Reuters) – The head of UniCredit (CRDI.MI: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) has urged the European Central Bank to increase access to ECB borrowing for Italian banks, a source close to the bank said, highlighting funding concerns among the country’s lenders.

The bank’s CEO Federico Ghizzoni and other European top bankers met ECB officials in Frankfurt but declined to comment on the content of the talks.