UniCredit eyes $387 mln for organic CEE growth-report

MILAN, May 17 (Reuters) - Europe's third-largest bank UniCredit (CRDI.MI: Quote, Profile, Research) wants to invest some $387 million this year in central and eastern Europe to open 512 branches, the head of its business there said, according to newspaper Il Sole 24 Ore.

"The investment, including spending on staff and information technology, will be around 250 million euros ($386.9 million)," said Federico Ghizzoni in comments reported by the newspaper in its Saturday issue.

He said UniCredit, which became a big lender in the area after its purchase in 2005 of HVB, wanted to increase revenues in the region this year above 20 percent.

"The average increase (there) in revenues for banks is around 20 percent ... (our objective) is to see a revenue increase in 2008 above this percentage," he said.

UniCredit reaps about half its revenues outside Italy, where it is the country's second-biggest retail bank with over 4,500 branches.

In Russia, Ghizzoni said, UniCredit wanted to increase its market share from a current 2 percent to 4-5 percent. He added that there were no acquisitions being studied at the moment, but that "Russia is a country where I don't want to exclude, in the medium-term, a possible acquisition."

Elsewhere in the area, acquisitions were not being considered, he said. "The shopping phase is behind us," he said.

UniCredit sealed a deal on Friday to sell 184 domestic branches to a group of Italian banks for 747 million euros. That leaves it with about 4,550 branches in Italy.

(Reporting by Jo Winterbottom)