Effervescent day yesterday for the Lion of Trieste. After the announcement of the resignation of Balbinot, former CEO of the group, who moved to Allianz, the resignation from the board of directors of Generali of the former number one of ENI, Paolo Scaroni, came not exactly as a surprise.
By resigning, Scaroni will thus avoid the pronouncement of his reinstatement at the Generali meeting of 14 October after his suspension following the conviction in the first instance for "environmental disaster" of the Porto Tolle plant when he was CEO of Enel. Scaroni has always professed his innocence but the Generali shareholders' meeting risked going into a split because the Italian shareholders, who are in the majority, wanted his reinstatement but the foreign shareholders were in favor of his exit also following the advances on his possible involvement in Eni's tangential affairs in Nigeria and Algeria.
The president of Generali, Gabriele Galateri, said he welcomed "with great regret Paolo Scaroni's decision to resign from the board of directors", on which he had sat for seven years.
After leaving the leadership of ENI, Scaroni is now vice president of Rothschild Italy.
