UniCredit's Bank Austria CEO steps down -reports

VIENNA, May 17 - The head of UniCredit's Bank Austria, the country's biggest bank and Unicredit's holding company for most of its emerging European assets, will step down in October, Austrian media reported on Sunday.

Erich Hampel, who was at the helm of Bank Austria since 2004 and whose contract would have run until the spring 2010, will be replaced by Willi Cernko, a former Bank Austria manager who now works at UniCredit's German arm HypoVereinsbank.

Bank Austria was not immediately available for a comment about the reports by Austrian state TV ORF and the Austrian Press Agency, known as the APA.

The management change comes as Bank Austria is in talks with the Austrian government about a capital injection to strengthen the bank's balance sheet as non-performing loans in emerging Europe begin to rise.

UniCredit is the biggest lender in the former Communist part of Europe, and apart from its Polish business, all its banks in the region are owned by Bank Austria. UniCredit bought the Austrian bank in 2005 as part of its HypoVereinsbank takeover.