Italian stocks - Factors to watch on Jan 16

MILAN Jan 16 (Reuters) - The following factors could affect Italian markets on Monday.

Reuters has not verified the newspaper reports, and cannot vouch for their accuracy. New items are marked with (*).

SOVEREIGN DEBT CRISIS

Standard & Poor's hit the euro zone with a downgrade of half the countries in the single currency area, including formerly AAA-rated France, and it questioned the strategy of its political leaders for dealing with their two-year old debt crisis.

European leaders promised on Saturday to speed up plans to strengthen spending rules and get a permanent bailout fund up and running as soon as possible, a day after U.S. agency S&P cut the ratings of several euro zone countries' creditworthiness.

* SAIPEM

The Italian oil services group could see "near two-digit" growth in core profit in 2012 on revenue of almost 13 billion euros ($16.5 billion), Italian daily La Repubblica said on Monday in its Affari&Finanza supplement, without citing sources.

* FIAT

Sergio Marchionne, the chief executive of the Italian car maker, said the company was planning production of a Turkish-made car at Bursa in the northwest of the country, Turkish newspapers reported on Monday.

* MEDIASET

Italy's biggest commercial broadcaster Mediaset SpA expects to have posted a 2011 net profit of more than 200 million euro, its vice chairman said in an interview with La Stampa on Monday.

ASSICURAZIONI GENERALI

Israel's Midgal Insurance and Financial Holdings said on Sunday its controlling shareholder, Italian insurer Generali, has received offers to buy its stake in Migdal but has not yet responded to them.

Generali said on Sunday it was one of the insurers of the capsized Costa Concordia liner. It said due to its reassurance policy any claims impact would be very marginal.

UNIPOL, FONDIARIA-SAI

Italian insurer Unipol has set a range of 750 million euros to 1 billion euros for a planned capital increase, a source close to the matter said on Friday.

A plan by Italian insurer Unipol to merge with peer group Fondiaria-SAI does not involve the sale of its banking unit, Unipol's CEO was quoted as saying on Saturday.

The capital increase of Fondiaria-SAI of up to 750 million euros could be delayed because of the complexity of the Unipol bid on the group, Il Sole 24 Ore said on Sunday.

BANCA POPOLARE DI MILANO

Raffaele Mincione said in an interview in Sunday's Il Sole 24 Ore his investment via Time & Life in Pop Milano with8.2 percent of the capital was a medium term investment

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Block trades..........

Stories on Italy...... IT-LEN

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