(MENAFN- AFP) Italy's largest bank Unicredit said Tuesday it had suffered a staggering 14 billion euro ($19.4 billion) loss last year as it wrote down the value of assets and increased its loan loss provisions.The bank also unveiled a strategic plan that targets generating over 6 billion euros in annual net profits in four years.The loss was essentially due to writing down the value of assets by 9.3 billion euros and increasing reserves to cover at risk loans by 7.2 billion euros in the final quarter of last year.It also took a restructuring charge of 699 million euros.Eurozone banks have been under pressure to clean up their balance sheets before the European Central Bank conducts its review of the books of the biggest lenders in the single currency bloc as it prepares to take over as the banking regulator.Unicredit, which posted a net profit of 865 million euros in 2012, also announced a plan under which it quickly intends to boost profitability."Whilst in 2014 we estimate a net profit around 2 billion euros, we intend to more than triple this to 6.6 billion euros in 2018," chief executive Federico Ghizzoni was quoted as saying.The bank also said it intends to distribute about 40 percent of profits to shareholders.Ghizzoni said the strategic plan "is based on solid fundamentals, a strong risk culture and an improving macro-economic climate."He said this involves investment of 4.5 billion euros to grow revenues and to cut an additional 1.3 billion euros in costs.The bank said it has made considerable progress in reducing the risk in its business, with its leverage ratio down to assets of 19 times its capital from 32 before the global financial crisis struck.And it has reduced its funding gap to 29 billion euros from 163 billion, while increasing its coverage rate for impaired loans and capital base ratios.Unicredit shares jumped 5.5 percent to 6.38 euros while the Milan market added 0.67 percent overall.
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