The clash at the top of Generali for the renewal of the leadership of the insurance company is heating up. Leonardo Del Vecchio's Delfin and some companies of the Caltagirone group signed a shareholders' agreement yesterday that has all the flavor of a torpedo against the current CEO of Generali, Philippe Donnet, in view of the spring meeting but even before the board of directors at the end of the month which must decide the list of candidates for the new board.
Del Vecchio and Caltagirone, which together represent 10,94% of Generali's capital, make no secret of wanting to replace Donnet at the helm of Generali and the shareholders' agreement, which concerns all of their ordinary shares, is a tool aimed at this objective. The press release drafted by the two parties is clear: the purpose of the agreement is the commitment to consult each other "in order to better weigh their respective independent interests with respect to a more profitable and effective management of Assicurazioni Generali, based on the technological modernization of the core business, to the strategic positioning of the company, as well as to its growth in an open, transparent and contestable market logic”. It couldn't be clearer than that. It is an explicit declaration of war on Donnet who has always said he wants to imitate the governance model of Mediobanca and is preparing to present, first to the nomination committee and then to the Generali board of directors at the end of the month, a list of candidates which is an expression of management in view of next spring's assembly. A move that Del Vecchio and above all Caltagirone, which makes no secret of aiming for the presidency of the company to refresh its image, do not share and which they oppose in the name of the shareholders' rights to have more say in the company's choices. Up to now Mediobanca, which with its 13% is the main shareholder of Generali, has supported Donnet and his governance model but now the circle is narrowing and it will be necessary to see if and to what extent the CEO of Piazzetta Cuccia, Alberto Nagel, in turn besieged at home by Del Vecchio and Caltagirone who have recently rounded up their shares in Mediobanca, he will and will be able to resist the pressure of the two aggressive shareholders for Generali.
What is certain is that with the birth of the shareholders' agreement between Del Vecchio and Caltagirone, peace in Generali has definitively waned and that days of battle are announced for the Lion of Trieste.
