MILAN Jan 5 (Reuters) – The chief executive of
UniCredit told an Italian daily on Thursday he was
confident investors would underwrite nearly all of a 7.5 billion
euro rights issue that the top Italian bank launched at a
massive discount on Wednesday.

In an interview with Il Sole 24 Ore CEO Federico Ghizzoni
also said the bank planned to keep holdings of Italian
government bonds at current levels.

“On government bonds we will continue to do what we did in
2011 at auctions. If necessary we will buy and we’ll then
contribute to sell on the market. The idea is to keep volumes in
our portfolio at current levels,” Ghizzoni was quoted as saying.

The manager reiterated his position that liquidity provided
by the European Central Bank should be used primarily to lend to
families and companies.

In an unprecedented move, the ECB injected in December
almost 500 billion euros of longer-term liquidity helping demand
for short-term Italian and Spanish government bonds. But
longer-term Italian bonds remained under pressure.

UniCredit announced on Wednesday the terms of a rights issue
which will start on Jan. 9 and close on Jan. 27.

“I believe the capital increase will be basically all
underwritten by markets,” Ghizzoni told Il Sole.

(Writing by Valentina Za)