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European shares fall as Unicredit and Erste hit financials

* UniCredit (EUREX: DE000A163206.EX - news) falls on CEO uncertainty

* Erste down on move by Uniqa to sell stake

* World Bank cuts economic growth forecasts (Recasts, adds detail and updates prices at close)

By Kit Rees and Sudip Kar-Gupta

LONDON, June 8 (Reuters) - European shares fell on Wednesday after two straight days of gains, as a drop in Italian bank UniCredit and Austrian bank Erste knocked financial stocks.

Mixed Chinese economic data, along with a decision by the World Bank to slash its 2016 global economic growth forecast, also gave some traders a reason to take a negative view on the outlook for stock markets.

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"The Chinese export figures looked a bit disappointing, and the World Bank's cut to its forecasts is another reason to be a bit bearish on the markets," Berkeley Futures' associate director, Richard Griffiths, said.

The pan-European STOXX 600 and FTSEurofirst 300 indexes both ended down 0.5 percent.

UniCredit fell on uncertainty over the appointment of a new CEO and the possibility that it will have to launch a capital increase. The bank is due to hold a board meeting on Thursday.

Erste shares fell 3.8 percent, after insurance company Uniqa said it would sell about 17.4 million Erste shares.

Shares (Berlin: DI6.BE - news) in payment systems company Ingenico (Paris: FR0000125346 - news) dropped 7.2 percent after sector peer VeriFone posted lower-than-expected earnings.

Shares in German pharmaceuticals company Stada Arzneimittel (LSE: 0R5K.L - news) fell 1.7 percent after it denied a recent media report that it had held talks with CVC Capital Partners over a potential buyout.

The top riser was payments company Wirecard (LSE: 0O8X.L - news) , which jumped 5.9 percent, with traders citing reports that a Chinese company was interested in buying all or part of it.

Britain's FTSE 100 was the top performing European market, up 0.3 percent on the back of a rally in mining stocks including Anglo American (LSE: AAL.L - news) and Glencore (Xetra: A1JAGV - news) .

German utility E.ON gained 3.5 percent. Its Chief Executive Johannes Teyssen urged shareholders to support plans to spin off Uniper, the operator of its conventional energy business.

Today's European research round-up

ADVISORY- Reuters plans to replace intra-day European and UK stock market reports with a Live Markets blog on Eikon (see cpurl://apps.cp./cms/?pageId=livemarkets for site in development). In a real-time, multimedia format from 0600 London time through the 1630 closing bell, it will include the best of our market reporting, Stocks Buzz service, Eikon graphics, Reuters pictures, eye-catching research and market zeitgeist. Breaking news and dramatic market moves will continue to be alerted to all clients and we will continue to provide a short opening story and comprehensive closing reports.

If you have any thoughts, suggestions or feedback on this, please email mike.dolan@thomsonreuters.com.

Mike Dolan, Markets Editor EMEA.