UniCredit’s Annunziata to Leave Bank for Job in U.S.

UniCredit SpA Chief Economist Marco Annunziata said he will leave Italy’s biggest bank by the end of 2010 and move to the U.S. for a new job.

“I will leave UniCredit at the end of the year to pursue a new exciting professional challenge, U.S.-based,” Annunziata, 45, said in an e-mail today. He declined to elaborate.

Annunziata, who reports to Thorsten Weinelt, the global head of research and chief strategist, is departing for personal reasons and the lender is seeking a replacement, a spokeswoman for UniCredit said.

Annunziata, who joined the company from Deutsche Bank AG in 2003 and previously worked for the International Monetary Fund, oversaw economics, fixed-income and foreign-exchange research in the London office of UniCredit.

The Milan-based bank is reorganizing after a management shakeup that started with Chief Executive Officer Alessandro Profumo’s departure in September. The company now plans to name a new head of corporate and investment banking after Sergio Ermotti stepped down in October and it’s seeking a new head of its business in central and eastern Europe after Federico Ghizzoni replaced Profumo.

To contact the reporters on this story: Lorenzo Totaro in Rome at ltotaro@bloomberg.net Elisa Martinuzzi in Milan at emartinuzzi@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: John Fraher at jfraher@bloomberg.net Edward Evans at eevans3@bloomberg.net