Insurer Generali: Rebel billionaires – economy

In Trieste, the share of the local insurer Generali is a popular share. Dock workers and ordinary employees meet billionaires at the general meetings in the conference center in the port, where emigrants once boarded ships.

A bitter argument has broken out between two of these very rich men and the Generali management – and the audience in Trieste is amazed. The second largest Generali shareholder Francesco Gaetano Caltagirone, 78, and the third largest shareholder Leonardo Del Vecchio, 86, want to overthrow CEO Philippe Donnet, 61, and the chairman of the supervisory board Gabriele Galateri di Genola, 74. So they want to curtail the power of the largest shareholder, Mediobanca, who is on the side of the group’s top management. The rebels accuse Donnet of being too timid when it comes to takeovers and other growth steps.

Caltagirone controls a conglomerate that also includes media companies. Del Vecchio is considered one of the richest men in Italy, and he also owns the Ray Ban eyewear brand.

About the background of the dispute, a story is told in Trieste that even includes the venerable one Financial Times has achieved. According to this, Del Vecchio is said to have offered the largest cancer clinic in Italy, the Istituto Europeo di Oncologia in Milan, a donation of 500 million euros in 2018. But the institute refused. Behind this, an angry Del Vecchio, was the clinic’s greatest supporter: the Mediobanca under Alberto Nagel.

This rejection, the story goes, made Del Vecchio so angry that he is now taking action against Nagel together with Caltagirone. The battlefield is the Generali. The two have now won the CRT Foundation for themselves, the three shareholders together hold more than 15 percent. They may be able to bet on the Benetton family, which owns 3.9 percent of the vote. Mediobanca holds 13 percent and has borrowed another four percent. The decisive factor will be which side the investment funds vote with at the annual general meeting in April 2022.

Donnet went on the offensive on Wednesday. At the investor’s day, he defended his “disciplined strategy”, which had shown itself in the recent takeover of rival Cattolica. He announced strong growth – in sales and profits and above all in the dividend. Instead of € 4.5 billion, Donnet plans to distribute € 5.2 billion to € 5.6 billion in the future. And for the first time in 15 years, Generali is buying back its own shares; the program is said to be worth 500 million euros.

We’ll see if that’s enough. The rebels want to present their own plan for the new Generali strategy these days. Turbulent months lie ahead for the Trieste company.

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