There is no peace for the Generali in view of the renewal of top positions next spring. Del Vecchio (5%) and Caltagirone (5,6%), which after Mediobanca (13%) are the most important shareholders of the leading Italian insurance company, make no secret of dislike the renewal of the board led by Piazzetta Cuccia on the basis of a list of candidates drawn up for the first time by the outgoing board of directors, which has its CEO in Philippe Donnet, who has recently become an Italian citizen. But now there's more.
After getting controversial refused to present his shares at the meeting, Francesco Gaetano Caltagirone, as reported today "the Republic“, sent an email to the directors expressing his dissent on the management of Generali and proposing a different governance. Caltagirone asks to centralize more powers in the president, to which he perhaps aspires, by subtracting them from the managing director, to appoint a general manager and to create an executive committee. The purpose is clear and it is to downsize Donnet and to make life increasingly difficult for him at the helm of Generali.
A meeting of the Generali board of directors is scheduled today to approve the accounts for the first quarter of 2021 and it is said that the issue of governance will not be re-proposed, even if by now it is clear that it is not a question of discussing abstract management models of the company but of questioning its current balance in view of the final battle in spring 2022, when the board will have to be renewed. In the meantime, we will also have to see what will happen in Mediobanca, where Caltagirone has recently entered with 1% of the capital, but above all where it will be necessary to keep an eye on Del Vecchio's moves, which can rise up to 20% of the Piazzetta Cuccia institute and which would welcome a merger between Mediobanca and Unicredit after the arrival of Andrea Orcel at the head of the second Italian bank.
