They will be able to object to the governance and procedures for renewing the board of the Leone which for the first time, following the Mediobanca model, provides for the presentation of a list of candidates by the outgoing board, but Francesco Gaetano Caltagirone e Leonard of the Elder, the restless and main members of the Generali after Piazzetta Cuccia, they will no longer be able to blame the CEO, Philippe Donnet and his team, disappointing stock market performance. The confrontation with the other European companies was a recurring refrain in the protests of the rebel shareholders polemically directed against the management of the Trieste company which concerned all the last CEOs of Generali, without taking into account that the low credibility of the system has always weighed on the Trieste company country and the heaviness of the Italian public debt, of which the Lion traditionally carries a significant share between BOTs and BTPs.
But now it can no longer be like this, because the numbers speak for themselves. And they say that after the first five months of 2021 that of Generali is absolute the best insurance title in the Old Continent. From the last stock market session of 2020 to last Friday, Generali has earned the 19,8%, beating the market (the Ftse Mib index rose by 15%) and ahead of both the French Axa (+16,06%) and the Germans of Allianz (+8,94%). Even more detached other European companies such as Prudential (+ 7,59%), Swiss Re (+ 3,5%) and Zurich (+1,07%). Not to mention the rich dividends which, net of capital gains, Generali guarantees to its shareholders, increasing the total return.
In Italy only Cattolica Insurance did better on the Stock Exchange than Generali during this year with a rise of 55,36%, of which 17,67% in the last week, both due to the excellent quarterly results and because the takeover bid launched on the Veneto-based company by Generali increased the value of the stock. But, far from being a reason for criticism for the Lion, the upward trend of the Cattolica confirms the goodness of Philippe Donnet's wing stroke, which took his critics by surprise launching the offer on the market for the conquest of full control of the Veronese company, recently transformed into a joint-stock company.
If only results counted, it is clear that, at the next spring deadline, Donnet should be promoted with flying colors, because all the numbers speak in his favour, but, as has been emphasized several times in these columns, Generali's Achilles heel is precisely its shareholding, whose main shareholders have often shown that they think more about their own profit than about the growth and peaceful management of the company, guaranteed by an excellent management. It is too early to say what the future of the Lion of Trieste will be, above all in the light of the designs that are shaking the Northern galaxy on the Unicredit-Mediobanca-Generali axis under the impulse of Del Vecchio and Caltagirone which push Andrea Orcel to take the field, but for now the facts prove the management of the insurance company right, as the Stock Exchange shows it knows well.
