* CFO Alan Hippe leaves at own request - ThyssenKrupp
* Hippe to "pursue a new professional opportunity"
* Supervisory board to discuss matter on Jan. 21
* Shares drop 3.5 percent, biggest blue-chip decliner
* Daimler denies market talk Hippe heading to carmaker
(Recasts lead, adds Daimler talk, analyst comment, background)
By Marilyn Gerlach
FRANKFURT, Jan 14 (Reuters) - ThyssenKrupp said its Chief Financial Officer Alan Hippe, once seen as a frontrunner for the top job, had decided to leave, sending shares in Germany's biggest steelmaker lower.
Hippe, 44, will quit on March 31 after two years in office to "pursue a new professional opportunity", ThyssenKrupp said in a statement on Friday, without giving any more details.
Shares of ThyssenKrupp were down 3.3 percent at 30.665 euros by 1057 GMT, making them the biggest decliners in the German blue-chip index, which was down 0.3 percent.
"I think it is a clear loss for Thyssen but from an operational point of view nothing will change," said Michael Broker, analyst at Frankfurt brokerage firm Steubing.
A spokesman for carmaker Daimler said there was no truth to market talk that Hippe was to join the management board there. Shares in Daimler were up 1.6 percent at 1056 GMT.
Hippe, who is highly regarded in the investor community, was one of those seen as a frontrunner for the top job at ThyssenKrupp before the company decided in May 2010 to pick outsider Heinrich Hiesinger from Siemens.
Hired in April 2009 after his success in repairing the business of automotive supplier Continental AG, Hippe swiftly came to grips with the new plants' spiralling costs, endearing him to many in the investment community.
"He did a good job at ThyssenKrupp. He turned around the company quickly and successfully," said Matthias Hellstern of Moody's.
Analysts also liked his open communications style and the high level of detail in his financial reports.
Some had hoped that Hippe would be anointed as the successor of Ekkehard Schulz but Hiesinger, a senior executive at Siemens, bested him and two other internal ThyssenKrupp candidates.
Schulz will formally hand over the CEO baton to Hiesinger at the next annual shareholders meeting on January 21.
German business dailies Handelsblatt and Financial Times Deutschland (FTD) earlier on Friday cited sources as saying Hippe was set to step down.
FTD said he was quitting because ThyssenKrupp's board was not planning to extend his contract beyond March 31, 2014. Handelsblatt said the company aimed to find a successor for Hippe in coming weeks.
(Additional reporting by Maria Sheahan, Anneli Palmen and Anika Ross; editing by Sophie Walker)