How will the Italian “annual results season” change? According to the Financial Times, the reform imposed by the Salva-Italia at the end of 2011 which obliges board members to sit on a single board in competing companies in the banking, insurance and financial sectors, it will certainly have an effect: it will decrease “the traffic of limousines that clog the streets of the center of Milan, transporting impeccable businessmen from one headquarters to another to sit on the boards of the most powerful banks and corporations”.
Beyond the inevitable teasing that the City newspaper never gives up when it comes to Italy, the news promises to be very relevant and profound indeed. For starters, the numbers count: it is estimated that, between the center and the periphery, there will be as many as 1.500 seats to be replaced.
Naturally, however, it is the VIPs who make the news. First of all, the parlor of Generali, which will really change its face for the occasion. Fabrizio Palenzona comes out of Piazzetta Cuccia, with great suffering, official liaison between Unicredit for more than a decade, where he remains deputy to the new president Giuseppe Vita, and the institute in Piazzetta Cuccia. Opt for Mediobanca, instead of Unicredit, Giampiero Pesenti. But among the defections that count are those of Marina Berlusconi, replaced by her brother Piersilvio (who relinquishes his seat on the board of Fininvest) and by Ennio Doris, which, of course, holds its “creature” tightly, ie Mediolanum. Painful choice also for Vincent Bolloré, forced to leave Mediobanca to remain in Trieste as vice president of Generali. Both Alberto Nagel and the general manager Saverio Vinci leave the Lion.
John BazoliFinally, he must leave his beloved Mittel in addition to the board of Ubi to keep his position as chairman of supervisory board of Intesa. The financial diaspora also affects Giambattista Montini and Stefano Gianotti, while Giorgio Franceschi has chosen Mittel instead of Banco di Brescia. Instead, Gianluca Ferrero comes out of Intesa, supervisory board member.
But what changes, beyond the relays in the Yellow Pages of finance? Much more than you think, according to some. It could be the first step towards the separation of the centers of power which represented an important step in the reform of the German model. In 2001, in fact, Germany sent the old Rhenish model, based on the interweaving of shares between the Bigs, into the attic with Teutonic programming and method. The transaction had beneficial effects on the finance and corporate business, without the dreaded irruption of the "locusts", ie Anglo-Saxon private equity, causing any particular imbalances in the system.
The Financial Times goes as far as to hypothesize that the novelty could accelerate Mediobanca's change of skin, favoring more dynamic management of the business and equity investments. "After a decade of stagnation in the Italian economy - he writes - Mediobanca's strategic position, at the center of the country's finance, is more of a constraint than a strength", a circumstance that could be exacerbated by the difficulties arising in the Fonsai-Unipol merger . Others are more cautious and more perplexed about the value of the novelty, which in any case "frees up" places for the benefit of funds and other institutional investors, but until now expropriated from more or less good salons by team play.
