He has been running Unicredit since April.
(Photo: dapd)
Munich, Rome When the new Unicredit boss Andrea Orcel presents his new strategic plan on Thursday, the expectations are high. What has already leaked: Unicredit apparently wants to cut 3,000 of the currently 87,000 positions, as reported by several media.
Most of the jobs in the Milan headquarters are to be eliminated. But foreign locations could also be affected. The structures of the group are partially duplicated there, especially in the back office. Even entire locations – for example in Athens, Tokyo and other countries in the distant Easter – could be closed, it is said.
There is no official statement from Unicredit so far. But it has been clear for some time that Orcel wants to simplify the institute’s processes and reduce bureaucracy. According to reports, it shouldn’t be a radical cut either: Most jobs could be cushioned through early retirement.
Even top management has already downsized. For example, in many places the double top positions popular with Orcel’s predecessor, Jean-Pierre Mustier, have been dismantled in core functions of the group. At the same time, 1,500 jobs are to be filled. The restructuring of customer processes that has been initiated within the bank has for some time led to an increase in IT, especially in the area of IT.
Top jobs of the day
Find the best jobs now and
be notified by email.
HVB is also looking for IT experts
The new private customer board member Marion Höllinger of HVB had just started her new smart banking concept for around 1.5 million private customers last week. Similar to the entire industry, HVB also wants to strengthen itself with IT experts.
A tough restructuring program, as was the case when Mustier took office a few years ago, is therefore not expected in Munich. Rather, one is preparing for more efficiency in internal processes.
The expected job cuts at the major Italian bank Unicredit should nevertheless also have consequences at HVB. “There will be cuts here too,” it is already said in banking circles. A three-digit number of digits could be affected.
The HVB did not want to comment on this. A guarantee agreement negotiated years ago between the management board and the workforce stipulates that the minimum number of employees should be just under 11,000 by 2025. But jobs have been cut at Hypovereinsbank for years. According to the annual report, there were still 11,537 full-time positions at the middle of the year, 537 fewer than in the previous year. This recently came very close to the guarantee agreement.
“In the future, we will have fewer than 11,000 employees,” it is now said from banking circles. After all, a guarantee agreement can also be terminated. The agreement once made is not legally binding.
It was only at the end of 2019 that HVB boss Michael Diederich announced the cut of around 1,300 jobs within ten years. At that time the bank still had 12,200 employees. Now the process could gain momentum.
Unicredit wants to expand business in Italy
From the Milan Unicredit headquarters, however, the handwriting of the new CEO Andrea Orcel can be seen more and more. He has been in charge of the business since April and had taken six months to reorganize the company’s strategy.
He has repeatedly emphasized that Unicredit is a pan-European bank “with Italian roots”. His primary goal: to become even stronger and more present in his home country. Unlike its predecessor Jean-Pierre Mustier, Orcel is also ready to grow through acquisitions.
The long-planned takeover of the state crisis bank Monte dei Paschi di Siena (MPS) failed only six weeks ago. Unicredit wanted to take over almost three quarters of the bank’s assets from Tuscany, plus a good 1,000 of the 1,300 branches. However, Orcel is said to have made a state capital increase of more than six billion euros a condition of the deal – the Italian Ministry of Finance, which has held around 64 percent of the shares since the bank was bailed out in 2017, wanted that much risk, but did not want to increase it.
For Unicredit, MPS would have been a central component in order to grow stronger domestically and to assert itself against the growing competition from top dog Intesa Sanpaolo. Since Intesa merged with the medium-sized UBI Banca, Unicredit has lost market share. In Lombardy, for example, the region around Milan, Unicredit only ranks fourth among branches. The many MPS branches in the north would have helped a lot in catching up.
More: How Marion Höllinger is changing HVB’s private customer business