FRANKFURT, July 13 (Reuters) - German retailer Metro (MEOG.DE) plans to appoint a new chief financial officer to free up its current CFO to drive forward the company's restructuring programme, German daily Handelsblatt said on Monday 13 July.

Photo: dpa

From the beginning of next year, private equity company Permira's Olaf Koch will replace Thomas Unger, the newspaper said, citing sources close to the company's supervisory board.

It said Unger would become deputy chief executive, backing up CEO Eckhard Cordes and overseeing Metro's restructuring programme "Shape 2012", which will axe 15,000 jobs and aims to fatten profits by 1.5 billion euros ($2.1 billion) by 2012.

Handelsblatt also said Unger would be in charge of talks for a possible department store tie-up with insolvent Arcandor AG's (AROG.DE) Karstadt stores.

A person close to Metro told Reuters that the company's supervisory board was expected to discuss possible management changes at its next meeting at the end of July.

Metro declined to comment on the report.

(Reporting by Maria Sheahan, editing by Will Waterman) ($1=.7189 Euro)