MILAN, Reuters BPER Banca said its newly elected board would meet later on Friday to appoint a new chief executive, as former UniCredit manager Gianni Franco Papa prepares to take the reins at Italy39;s fourthlargest bank.

Papa, 68, was a former general manager at UniCredit and had already been sitting on BPER39;s outgoing board.

Papa has been selected by BPER39;s top investor Unipol, an insurance group which owns a stake of nearly 20 in the bank, to replace Piero Montani.

Montani is a restructuring expert who arrived at BPER in 2021, brought in by Unipol to oversee the integration of businesses the group had bought in recent years.

Reporting by Andrea Mandalà, editing by Valentina Za

Source Reuters