UniCredit’s Search for New Chairman: Strategies, Candidates, and Potential Impact

2023-12-06 18:36:42

UniCredit’s board is working to choose a new candidate to chair the Italian bank by early January, as it prepares to hand a new contract to Chief Executive Andrea Orcel in spring 2024, two people said. sources close to the case.

The list of candidates the board will propose at the annual shareholders’ meeting is expected to include a new candidate to succeed Chairman Pier Carlo Padoan, said the sources, who asked not to be named because the information is confidential.

Deliberations are ongoing and major shareholders will have their say on the matter, one of the sources said. The American fund BlackRock is UniCredit’s largest shareholder, followed by the German insurer Allianz.

UniCredit declined to comment.

The bank has been working to repair its relations with the Roman government since Orcel gave up in 2021 on buying the state-owned bank Monte dei Paschi di Siena.

The former head of UBS’s investment bank had returned to Italy, following building his career abroad, to head UniCredit in the spring of that year.

Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s right-wing administration is wary of Orcel and the skills he acquired over three decades in investment banking, government sources told Archyde.com.

The new board chairman might help strengthen ties with Rome, but Mr. Padoan, 73, an economist who served as finance minister under center-left prime ministers Matteo Renzi and Paolo Gentiloni, is seen as misplaced in this regard.

Potential candidates for his succession include board members Elena Carletti and Lamberto Andreotti, who head the risk committee and the nomination committee respectively.

Elena Carletti, currently professor of finance at Bocconi University in Milan following having held academic positions in Germany, has been a director of UniCredit since 2019.

Andreotti, 73, is the former CEO of Bristol-Myers Squibb, and the son of multi-time Prime Minister Giulio Andreotti.

In September, UniCredit hired two executive search firms to help its board select candidates for renewal.

Normally, the bank would like the future president to participate in the board selection process, which would be possible with Carletti and Andreotti since they already sit on the board, although Andreotti would have to step down from his role as head of the nominations committee.

Mr. Padoan became a board member before being named chairman and worked with headhunters to select board candidates.

Another candidate being considered is Pier Francesco Saviotti, a veteran Italian banker who worked with Orcel at Merrill Lynch.

However, another person with knowledge of the matter dismissed Saviotti as well as another former investment banker, Massimo Tononi, who currently chairs the board of directors of Banco BPM and who has been mentioned in the Italian press.

Daniele Franco, who served as economy minister under Mr. Meloni’s predecessor, Mario Draghi, is also a possible option, but his chances are slim, the sources said.

A former Bank of Italy official, Mr Franco is currently one of five candidates for the post of president of the European Investment Bank, but Spanish Finance Minister Nadia Calvino is leading the race.

Although he enjoys good relations with Economy Minister Giancarlo Giorgetti, Mr. Franco’s ties with the upper echelon of Mr. Meloni’s cabinet are considered too weak. (Additional information provided by Andrea Mandala and Gianluca Semeraro; edits by Mark Potter and Leslie Adler)

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