MILAN (Reuters) - Shares in Telecom Italia (>> Telecom Italia SpA) were down more than 2 percent in early trade on Wednesday after Chairman Franco Bernabe said the Italian phone group may launch a capital increase to avoid a credit downgrade of its debt.

At 0707 GMT, the stock was down 1.8 percent at 0.5885 euros, underperforming a 0.4 percent fall in Milan's FTSE MIB blue-chip index <.FTMIB>.

(Reporting by Agnieszka Flak, editing by Jennifer Clark)

Stocks treated in this article : Telefonica SA, Telecom Italia SpA