There are worries every day at Unicredit in London

It's a while since we've given any thought to the plight of people working for Unicredit at London Wall. Events in Italy have brought them to our attention again.

No one knows precisely how many people Unicredit employs down at the Wall. Headhunters put fingers in the air and suggest a couple of hundred credit people and around 40 equities professionals. Unicredit doesn't provide any detailed accounts for London, but accounts for Unicredit CAIB Securities - which was wound up and integrated with the rest of the bank in May last year - show there were 57 people working in equities trading sales and trading alone (of whom the best paid earned 1.8m).

Some people have been let go from Unicredit's London business already. The bank announced a pullback from equities sales and trading in October and is in the middle of a review of its business and - like most others- is considering its commitment to investment banking.

For Unicredit in particular though, the situation is worsened by close links to its parent country and its parent country's government debt. With €49.1bn of Italian government bonds, Unicredit ranks behind only Intesa for exposure to the Italian sovereign. Intesa doesn't have much of an office in London.

"There are worries every day at Unicredit in London," says one headhunter. "They have a full scale rates and credit platform in London and are having the same kind of strategic debate about investment banking as other banks, but the risks are greater because London is only a branch office. Also, no one's hiring and as Unicredit's not even seen as a tier two player, people leaving there will struggle to find new roles anywhere else."

Cheeringly, he points out that Unicredit staff aren't the only ones in the headlights. "Unless Italy gets sorted out soon, BNP and Credit Agricole are going to struggle too."