With an icy press release, in line with the wind that is whipping Trieste in these days, Generali fired, as was already known, the general manager Alberto Minali, thunderstruck by Mediobanca for having dared to disagree with some strategic choices appreciated by the majority shareholder and Philippe Donnet, the CEO liked by Vincent Bolloré who aims to strengthen the fleet of ex-Axa managers.
The pressure from Banca Intesa undoubtedly contributed to complicating the picture, increasingly focused on the search for an industrial alliance with the Lion that Alberto Nagel sees as smoke screens. In this framework it is necessary to present to the world a compact, indeed tetragonal structure which, as the communications to Consob attest, controls 3,376% of the "enemy" Banca Intesa. Hence the outright dismissal of Minali, 51, who will leave the company at the end of the month, only partially replaced by Luigi Libelli (another company veteran promoted to group CFO) after having collected the provisions of his contract: a " severance” of 2.119.833,33 euros (corresponding to 14 months' pay) plus 2.158.119,60 euros for failure to give notice. To this figure must be added the 2016 bonus (1 million gross) plus another figure to be quantified for the last three years. The manager will then be recognized the sum of 500.000 euros against the non-compete commitments. In all, 5,7 million euros.
Thus ends Minali's adventure at the top of the Lion: the manager was appointed on 17 March 2016, a choice at the time interpreted as a sort of compromise between the internal structure and the transalpine CEO Philippe Donnet, appreciated by Vincent Bolloré . But the deal didn't hold up. Now all the top-level corporate functions that depended on Minali have been placed "in the state and with immediate effect reporting directly to the group CEO", i.e. Donnet. All power, including "strategic operations" pass under the direct control of a troika which includes, in addition to Donnet, Gabriele Galateri di Genola, Francesco Gaetano Caltagirone, Lorenzo Pellicioli, Clemente Rebecchini and Paola Sapienza. He is promoted to Group Cfo Luigi Lubelli.
Today the team of the Lion will go to Consob as did the managers of Banca Intesa yesterday. In Piazza Affari, the shares of the duelists fell yesterday: Intesa -2,5%, Generali -1,4%, with a trend reversal in the middle of the morning. The battlefield has moved to Mediobanca +3% and Unicredit +4%.
