MILANO – Final measures to close the joints of the lists of candidates who will compete on April 29th the board of Generali. On the one hand, the list of outgoing, which has already announced eight names and will be released after the board of directors on Monday 14. On the other, the antagonists, led by shareholder Caltagirone who perhaps the same day will publish a list of challengers for the top 2022-2025.
The Roman entrepreneur, who in the last month may have approached 9.9% of Generali, is probing many financial players to compose a “long” list that, in the event of a win, allows him to indicate 9 or 10 of the future 13 administrators. His consultants, Fabrizio Palermo and Georgeson, are trying to fit the boxes with variable grids for top positions. For the candidate ad there would be contacts with Marco Alverà, CEO of Snam expiring, and with the banker Diego De Giorgi, operating partner of the spac Pegasus.
But the first is not necessarily free from his position, while for the second the announcement of 31 December from Pegasus Europe, the spac of which he is an operational partner with Jean Pierre Mustier, still applies: “Diego De Giorgi is engaged in his activity and in the success of Pegasus Europe », which looks for prey to acquire. The figure of the head will depend on that of the president: and at least two would be contacted here. One is Maria Patrizia Grieco, president of MPS but who would have given willingness to challenge the candidate of the board of directors, Andrea Sironi. The other would be Claudio Costamagna, now president of the Revo insurance spac, who has recently bought Elba Assicurazioni.
Market sources say that, probed, the former president of Salini Impregilo and Cdp would have given a general availability, bound to many variables: the Italian and foreign context, the type of list, the reactions of the market, the industrial plan, the figure of the ad. However, it does not appear to be an involvement of Alberto Minali, partner of Costamagna and head of Revo, as well as former CEO of Leone. Then there are the other possible members of the “Caltagirone list”, which will also be voted on by Del Vecchio and the Crt Foundation, so it will start with a 20-25% approval rating: and they certainly do not have “filler” curricula.
Sources close to the dossier mention Flavio Cattaneo, former head of Terna, Rai and Ntv, one of the few executives with whom Caltagirone is confronted; Massimo Ferrari, financial director of Webuild; the jurist and former minister of justice Paola Severino; the university professor Sabrina Pucci, until 25 January a director of Generali, then resigned “for personal reasons”, but in contrast with some internal governance choices.
Any deposit by Caltagirone of a “long” list, therefore an effective contender for the list of outgoing candidates supported by Mediobanca and that starts from about 20% of consensus, could lead the minorities of the market to make more renounced choices on the hypothesis of forming their own, third list. But there is time until March 28, and the basic scenario is to do it anyway.