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Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.
In a dress rehearsal, minor slip-ups are easily forgiven. But the cast’s performance — sparkling or shabby as it may be — does set the tone for the main event.
That is one way to read events at Italy’s Generali, where key shareholder Mediobanca won control of the insurer’s board of directors earlier this week. Its slate, which confirmed existing chief executive Philippe Donnet, gained the support of much of the international shareholder base. The rival faction — captained by rebel shareholders Francesco Gaetano Caltagirone and the Luxottica family holding company Delfin — gained little sway beyond local allies.
All this may well have been an exercise in theatrics. After all, Mediobanca itself is under siege. It faces a hostile offer from the world’s oldest bank, Monte dei Paschi di Siena, in which Delfin and Caltagirone hold significant stakes. Should Mediobanca’s defences be breached, that might bring its key stake in Generali into their orbit and give them another run at control of the insurer. Generali’s newly appointed board does not expire until 2028, but the fiery rebels could conceivably call an extraordinary shareholder meeting to try to ram their candidates through earlier.
Mediobanca’s victory earlier this week may slow their roll. True, the result came about — at least partly — through an own goal from the Caltagirone crowd. Had their six-candidate slate garnered the most votes, the resulting board would have been unwieldy and tricky to manage. That likely prompted international investors to throw their lot in with Mediobanca.
Yet the fact that international shareholders played nice with Mediobanca may also reflect the fact that Generali is by no means in urgent need of a fix. Indeed, it has gradually been making up the ground it lost to European rivals. Since 2016, when Donnet took the helm, the group’s net income has risen by almost 80 per cent, well above Axa and Allianz. And over the past year Generali’s stock — undoubtedly also frothed up by the shareholder battle — has comfortably outperformed that of European rivals.
There are bound to be quibbles, of course. Generali’s deal to merge its asset management arm with France’s Natixis, for example, has attracted much local wailing. But the insurer’s solid performance deprives rebel shareholders of at least one good reason to upend the board ahead of time.
None of this may matter when the time comes. Pending the outcome of the bunfight at Mediobanca, challengers may end up with the votes to shove their candidates through willy-nilly. But their poor performance at the practice run spotlights the weakness of their script.
