Mario Greco "is unavailable for the renewal" of his mandate as CEO of Generali, leaves the leadership of the Lion and from May XNUMX will be the number one of the Zurich Group. It was Greco himself who communicated it to the president of Generali, Gabriele Galateri di Genola, putting an end to a shower of indiscretions that had been circulating for some time.
The news of Greco's exit caused Generali shares to lose 3,1% on the Stock Exchange in a session with a clear recovery in Piazza Affari, which gained 1,5% after the torments of recent days.
Greco has expressed his willingness to remain at the head of Generali until the next company meeting in April but it is not certain that an interim solution for the president Galateri will not mature in the coming days to avoid conflicts of interest.
What is certain is that the succession to Greco will be internally. Two most likely candidates for the leadership of the Lion of Trieste, both with a solid insurance curriculum behind them: either Alberto Minali, a fifty-year-old from Verona and current CFO of Generali or the French Philippe Donnet, CEO of Generali Italia strongly supported by Vincent Bollorè who wanted on the Super Advisory Board of Vivendi.
If the change at the top is associated with a new strategic project by the Trieste company, Donnet is likely to prevail. If, on the other hand, the need to renew the top management is affirmed by postponing the definition of the future strategy until the shareholders have clarified their ideas, then the choice could fall on Minali.
What are the reasons that led to the sensational divorce between Greco and Generali? A rumor is circulating in Piazza Affari according to which Greco would have opposed a bank-insurance consolidation project, supported by the shareholder Mediobanca, which would have welcomed a merger between the Trieste-based company and Unicredit. However, there is no confirmation of this project.
It is more probable that Greco took the opportunity to return to Zurich, where he will earn twice as much as in Trieste, after having caught signs of cooling towards him from shareholders who certainly suffer from the performance of Generali on the Stock Exchange and who he had recently been offered the possibility of introducing a ceiling at 60 years of age for CEO, thus making it impossible for Greco to have a third term or even to return to the unfortunate practice of annual appointments already established in the past.
It is on these grounds that the divorce matured even if Generali, despite the wavering of its major shareholders, remains a financial colossus and one of the few truly international large groups that Italy can boast.
