All the latest news in view of the Enel shareholders’ meeting scheduled for May 10 for the renewal of the board of directors. Facts, names and insights
It’s not just a financial and industrial game, with only domestic political implications, that is being played out at Enel.
Just look at the latest events to outline an at least controversial picture for the government on the renewal of Enel’s top management, after the choices of the executive – in particular of Lega and Forza Italia – to indicate Paolo Scaroni as president and Flavio Cattaneo as director delegate of the energy giant.
It made a noise yesterday there news according to which the Norwegian fund Norges – shareholder of Enel – will vote against the election of Scaroni, as indicated by the MEF, and will vote in favor of the candidate of the British fund Covalis, i.e. Marco Mazzucchelli, a banker considered a Draghi-boy.
Not a minor move, given that Norges is one of the largest sovereign wealth funds in the world and is considered by sector analysts as a sort of “cassation” in the ESG sector, which is very popular now, given the prominence of renewable energies.
Not to mention rough item of the British newspaper Guardian: “An energy industry veteran who has cultivated ties with Vladimir Putin and has criticized sanctions against Russia for its invasion of Ukraine is the favorite for the presidency of Italy’s largest utility company. Paolo Scaroni is the preferred candidate of Giorgia Meloni’s government coalition for the presidency of Enel. (…) Meloni, a staunch Atlanticist and supporter of Ukraine, is believed to have caved in to pressure from her coalition partners, Berlusconi – Putin’s longtime friend – and Matteo Salvini, leader of the League, over Scaroni’s appointment”.
But the controversies are not just in the media, there is a delicate geopolitical substance that is emerging in these hours. A few days ago the newspaper Republic he recalled that the Chinese are also in the fray over Enel. In fact, the Bank of China is a shareholder with about 2% of the first electricity company in the world, and it is widely believed in the markets that Beijing will support the list of candidates presented by the Ministry of Economy.
A scenario that in the American embassy in Rome (with the new tenant chosen by President Joe Biden) is seen like smoke and mirrors. In short, for Meloni, Chinese aid is just the umpteenth grain in a story that started wrong.
Not only because Scaroni (despite being deputy chairman of the American bank Rothschild) is considered by the Anglo-Americans to be close to Putin’s Russia, because of the gas agreements when he was number one at ENI, and because Cattaneo has publicly taken a position with an interview with Sheet last December against Enel’s investments in America.
“It is necessary to build an all-Italian supply chain that also includes the national production of panels. I know that Enel has opened a plant in Catania dedicated to this but then it also did it in the USA. It’s an approach that I don’t agree with: if you want to safeguard the national interest, it should be produced in Italy and not elsewhere”. these Cattaneo bluntly a few weeks ago, in a polemic against the outgoing number one of Enel, Francesco Starace, and after having spared no laudatory appreciation towards the Meloni government.
The truth is that the American pressure on Palazzo Chigi to wriggle out of the embrace with Beijing is strong. Even the delegation of congressmen led by Speaker of the House McCarthy who was in Rome this week urged Meloni to unload the Chinese. But Italian diplomats are holding back, they want to “negotiate” the exit from the Silk Road with the Chinese, to avoid negative repercussions in commercial exchanges.
At the moment, a big shot from the Foreign Ministry, Wang Lutong, is in Rome. It’s here – how he rebuilt Decode39 (header of Ants by Paolo Messa with the communicator Gianluca Comin, who in the past worked for Chinese giants) – to talk about the agreement on the Silk Road, and to arrange a visit by Meloni to China.
All we need is the probable support of the Chinese in Enel for a candidate disliked by much of the Anglo-Saxon world for the ultra-Atlantist Meloni.
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