Piazza Affari likes the “lighter” Mediobanca. For multiple reasons. First of all, the accounts are better than expected: profits of 171 million and up 57%. More importantly, part of the capital gains is the result of the announced reduction of the share in Telco from 11,62 to 7,34%, and profits from the sale of other shares for 20,7 million. A strategy that largely offsets the slowdown in revenues which fell to 416,3 million (-8,2%) due to the crisis in corporate Italy.
Alberto Nagel thus takes his leave of the "living room" model that has marked, and conditioned, a good part of Mediobanca's existence. But he doesn't give up on the traditional verbal exuberance that, once a year, distinguished Vincenzo Maranghi's lunges. Precisely on the day in which Alberto Patuano goes in procession to Palazzo Chigi to reassure the government about Telecom Italia's tricolor DNA, the CEO of Piazzetta Cuccia thus stamps the bipartisan moves to intimate the "no passaran" to Cesar Alierta: "This story of the he Italian spirit is a fairy tale that we want to keep telling ourselves, probably to cover up some local inefficiency. Being Italian doesn't make sense and the history we have to defend ourselves is a real nonsense”. “Telefonica represents a good opportunity – he added – I am amazed by the comments that speak of Telefonica as a negative partner. The operation is a good thing for all Telecom Italia shareholders”.
Sincerity does not change, the substance does. Nagel doesn't just kick off his leave from Telecom. The institute confirms that it has already sold 0,49% of Rcs already out of the agreement and 1,3% of Gemina. Not only. The bank in Piazzetta Cuccia does not let go of the former protégé Fonsai: the hypothesis of bringing a civil action is being evaluated in the context of the trial for false accounting on the management of Ligresti di Fonsai which will be held in Turin. We will evaluate as a civil party,” Nagel explained.
In short, the bank empties the safe of jewels set up to defend the powers that be. The next move, we know, will concern Pirelli. Then, without damaging the implicit and explicit capital gains, what remains of RCS and Gina will be liquidated. Generali is the exception, but only because the company "will continue to be an important contributor to income and capital". The plans to sell a 3% stake in Leone "serve to generate capital for the bank, to keep the bank well capitalized - explained Nagel - without giving up a stable growing profit that comes from the company".
Also thanks to Generali Mediobanca, Nagel assures, he will present himself at the ECB tests with more than adequate assets. But with which shareholder? Here a little yellow explodes. "Well-informed" sources, a definition that refers to the times when Mediobanca was more hermetic than the Kremlin, let it be known that the Mediobanca shareholders' agreement could be changed, giving rise to a consultation agreement with a relaxation of the restrictions on the availability of shares and the abolition of the different groups. But the presidency of the Mediobanca agreement let it be known that "there are no new changes with respect to what was communicated on 30 September on the renewal, type and composition of the agreement".
In short, not everyone likes the leap forward towards the public company model that the new Mediobanca likes so much, which wants to demonstrate that it has nothing to learn from models across the Alps, from Julius Baes to Oppenheimer. But, more than conspiracy theories, facts count now. For Mediobanca "a new era has begun on which the management is making a big, reasoned bet and so let's see what the future results will be". Word of Federico Ghizzoni, CEO of Unicredit, first shareholder of Piazzetta Cuccia. Even if, underlines Nagel, a marriage between Unicredit and Mediobanca "is not in sight, it is not in the programme'
