European shares ease, Unicredit boosts Italian banks

* STOXX 600 down 0.2 pct

* Italian banks rise after Unicredit (EUREX: DE000A163206.EX - news) results

* U.S. seismic survey permit review boosts TGS

* BT falls after revealing restructuring plan (ADVISORY- Follow European and UK stock markets in real time on the Reuters Live Markets blog on Eikon, see cpurl://apps.cp./cms/?pageId=livemarkets)

By Helen Reid

LONDON, May 11 (Reuters) - Italian banks shone in lacklustre European trading on Thursday after Unicredit's results indicated its turnaround was gathering pace.

Europe's STOXX 600 slipped 0.1 percent, while the eurozone's broader stocks and blue-chip indices fell 0.2 percent.

Financials were a bright spot for the second day running, with Unicredit up 4.4 percent after rising revenues and lower loan losses gave it better-than-expected first-quarter profits.

"We believe that strong headlines across the board on asset quality, capital and profit recovery should all support continued re-rating of the stock," said Jefferies analysts.

Italy's banking index tested its highest levels in more than a year as Mediobanca (Milan: MB.MI - news) , Ubi Banca (Amsterdam: UF8.AS - news) , and Banco BPM rose 1.8 to 3.5 percent. Italian blue chips outperformed their European peers, rising 0.3 percent.

"If the market wants to continue buying the reflation trade, Italian banks are the most sensitive to rising rates," said Antonio Guglielmi, head of equity markets at Mediobanca.

Hikma shares fell 8 percent, making it the worst-performing European stock. Its flagship generic drug, Advair, suffered a setback in its approval by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

Telecoms stocks were among the worst-performing, with BT down 2.5 percent after it announced 4,000 job cuts in a restructuring to recover from a year it called "challenging".

Shares (Berlin: DI6.BE - news) in Britain's biggest telecoms company have not recovered from a 20 percent drop after it revealed accounting malpractices in Italy in January.

Spain's Telefonica (LSE: 826858.L - news) fell 1.7 percent after its results.

Heat-pump maker Nibe Industrier (LSE: 0RH0.L - news) was the top gainer, up 7.6 percent after its first-quarter profits beat forecasts.

Norwegian seismic surveyor TGS gained 5.8 percent after the U.S. Department of Interior said it would review applications from TGS and five other companies to conduct seismic surveys in the Atlantic Ocean, reversing its previous stance.

Broker downgrades weighed on some of the top fallers. Centrica (Frankfurt: A0DK6K - news) fell 5.8 percent after JP Morgan cut it to "underweight".

Analysts at the bank said they saw "significant downside" emerging through price regulation of the standard energy tariff, a policy proposal announced by Prime Minister May on Tuesday, and emerging evidence of a 'price war' with competitor Engie (LSE: 0LD0.L - news) .

A rating cut from Citigroup (NYSE: C - news) sent German reinsurer Hannover Re down 5 percent.

German commercial broadcaster ProSiebensat fell 5.3 percent after it reported a disappointing advertising outlook.

It dragged on media stocks, which fell 1.3 percent, the top sectoral fallers.

European shares were underpinned by strong corporate earnings, with 20 percent earnings growth for the first quarter so far. Two-thirds of European companies have reported and 70 percent beat expectations, according to Thomson Reuters (Dusseldorf: TOC.DU - news) data.

(Reporting by Helen Reid, Editing by Vikram Subhedar)