Generali, Caltagirone: “It’s a battle for independence”

The battle of Trieste? “It is a war of independence for Generali, then the Risorgimento will come”. The ultimate goal? “A large multinational with Italian sovereignty to protect the country’s savings”. This is how Francesco Gaetano Caltagirone talks about the plans for the Lion in an interview with ‘Il Sole 24 Ore’. In terms of strategy, the entrepreneur explains that “it cannot be a global group, it is necessary to make choices and establish priorities. Insurance companies have three legs: non-life, life and savings. For the first two, the focus must be on the domestic market. , which for me is Europe, and the East, understood as China and India. For savings, the United States “. One month before the assembly that will have to decide on the renewal of the council, the Roman entrepreneur has deployed his forces in the field by presenting his own majority list with Claudio Costamagna as president and Luciano Cirinà as CEO. This, he says, “is not a bet on the red or black of Russian roulette but a decisive path to improve Generali.” “The vision that Generali had is not adequate to that of a large company that can and must meet global character “explains Caltagirone. “And precisely the lack of challenges has led to small-scale operations that have generated profits but not growth. Twenty years ago, Generali was second only to Allianz, while now it is half of Zurich and Axa, one third of Allianz. Zurich is also led. with great vision from Mario Greco, former CEO of Generali who left due to disagreements with the relative majority shareholder “observes the entrepreneur. Does he believe that the lack of vision is linked to managerial choices or something else? “It is the result of the choices made by the relative majority shareholder. So much so that Mediobanca has also lost ground enormously compared to competitors such as Lazard and Rothschild, despite having the advantage of having a stake in Generali in the financial statements. Mediobanca has not been able to overcome the boundaries of the company. Italy and witnessed the colonization of the Italian market by international investment banks, without obtaining any reciprocity, without demonstrating the ability to grow in other countries. Today, excluding Compass and Generali, Mediobanca is a small thing “underlines Caltagirone.