(Bloomberg) — Mediobanca Spa Chief Executive Officer Alberto Nagel is resigning along with some other members of the lender’s board, paving the way for a change in leadership after Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena SpA effectively won control over the rival.
“To facilitate an orderly and timely transition through the appointment of a new management body, the directors all, with the exception of” one member tendered their resignations, the bank said in a statement on Thursday.
Resignations will be effective from the date of the next annual meeting scheduled for Oct. 28, when a new board will be named.
The move comes after Monte Paschi’s takeover offer was accepted by investors representing about 63% of Mediobanca’s shares, ensuring the firm will have a majority stake once the bid ends. The outgoing management had been strongly opposed to the deal, arguing it lacked industrial and financial rationale.
Nagel, who earlier this week raised about €44 million ($52 million) by selling 2 million shares in the bank, was preparing to relinquish his post if Monte Paschi were to cross 50%, Bloomberg News has previously reported.
The acquisition will create Italy’s third-biggest bank, realizing a long-held ambition of Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni to establish a new large lender that can rival Intesa Sanpaolo SpA and UniCredit SpA.
In a bid to clinch the deal, Monte Paschi earlier this month improved its offer by adding a cash component to its bid, valuing Mediobanca at about €17.5 billion, compared with a market capitalization of about €17.4 billion.
Monte Paschi’s offer values Mediobanca’s stock at €21.55 apiece compared with the current market price of €21.48 in Milan trading.
In a farewell message addressed to employees Thursday, Nagel recapped the bank’s successes and challenges under his tenure and thanked them for their achievements.
“You now face new challenges that, I am sure, you will be ready to overcome by staying united and preserving the culture and diversity that make you unique,” he wrote. “I am sure that the bank’s new ownership cannot fail to recognize the value of your exceptional professional heritage.”
Nagel, 60, has led Mediobanca for 17 years, making him one of Europe’s longest-serving bank CEOs. He has expanded Italy’s only publicly listed investment bank into leading positions in retail banking and wealth management.
The veteran banker also navigated Mediobanca through the global financial crisis, the European debt crisis and a stream of Italian government changes.
Along the way, Nagel survived earlier efforts to oust him. Those campaigns were spearheaded by two investors with wide-ranging interests in Italian finance — the heirs to the late billionaire Leonardo Del Vecchio and the tycoon Francesco Gaetano Caltagirone.
The two together owned almost 30% of Mediobanca and hold about 20% in Monte Paschi. Backing Monte Paschi’s takeover, they have committed their shares to the deal, Bloomberg News has reported.
The departure of Nagel is also likely to raise questions about the strategy of Assicurazioni Generali SpA, Italy’s largest insurer. Mediobanca is Generali’s largest investor with a 13% stake. Generali CEO, Philippe Donnet, who’s backed by Nagel, has been facing attacks from Caltagirone. The tycoon is critical of Donnet’s plan to merge Generali’s asset management operations with Natixis Investment Managers, a unit owned by the French banking group BPCE. The deal has also come under criticism from Italian government officials.
Nagel signed his farewell letter off by quoting ancient Roman poet Horace: “Graecia capta ferum victorem cepit” — which translates to “Conquered Greece took captive her savage conqueror.”
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