Sometimes they come back. Frederic de Courtois, until a few months general manager of Generali and right-hand man of the CEO Philippe Donnet, returns to Paris to become the No. 2 of Axa, the French insurance giant. It is not the first time that the most popular managers of a company have been magnetized by a rival company and after all Donnet also came from Axa. It's the competition, honey.
A case similar to that of De Courtois occurred about ten years ago when Sergio Balbinot, then No. 2 of Generali under the management of Giovanni Perissinotto, was attracted by Allianz, of which he is a member of the international board. In more recent years Alberto Minali, former general manager of Leone, had moved on to Cattolica Assicurazioni, to become its CEO who was also able to fascinate Warren Buffett before the clash with the president Bedoni, severely censured by IVASS and Consob.
However, there is a common thread in all these events and it lies in the fact that Generali is and remains one of the few schools of international talent that Italy maintains and it is not surprising that its managers are among the most courted, even if Leo's main shareholders, who are more attentive to dividends and short-term results, still don't seem to have noticed. Greed sometimes clouds the vision.
