CEO’s Letter
Our Approach
Lettera del Presidente
“ 2012 was the year in which
we took action to secure our
future as a rock-solid European
”
commercial bank.
FEDERICO GHIZZONI
Chief Executive Officer
Dear Stakeholders,
2012 was a difficult year for the European economy, and We achieved a strong liquidity position in our countries,
UniCredit was not immune. Nevertheless, I believe it will be largely by reducing our commercial funding gap by
remembered as the turning point for our Group. For it was more than €45 billion. This was accomplished, in part,
the year in which we took action to secure our future as a by increasing our direct funding in Italy and other key
rock-solid European commercial bank. markets.
We secured our capital position in 2012, and simplified We undertook a number of measures to improve revenues
operations, reduced costs, strengthened our risk management and simplify the Group structure. One key initiative was the
culture, and introduced innovative products and new initiatives, redesign of our business model to move us closer to our
to lead the way to a more productive and prosperous future. customers.
We began the year by achieving the first target of our The framework to accomplish this is Project Group
three-year strategic plan, which was to strengthen the Organization Leaner Design (GOLD). The initiative is our
foundations of our Group through the reinforcement of our multi-year reorganization plan designed to assure that our
capital position. At the time, we were the only bank in Group becomes more efficient, less complex and more
Europe to carry out a successful capital increase. customer focused.
4 2012 Sustainability Report · Accounts
2012 Consolidated Reports and UniCredit· UniCredit