“London moves on Generali,” “The Lion and the Locusts,” “Funds attack Generali,” are some of the headlines today in the Italian media, commenting on the newest cannibalisation war among financial caymans. The story is that the same hedge fund group that took over ABN-Amro is now moving on the Italian insurance giant Generali. The move is important not only because Generali is the third-largest European insurance group, but it has been an historical stronghold of Anglo-French-Venetian oligarchies. Currently, Generali still represents the Lazard-Mediobanca alliance, which was cemented toward the end of WWII between Mediobanca founder Enrico Cuccia and Lazard founder Andre Meyer. Mediobanca is the clearing house for Franco-Italian business families, and is the largest shareholder of Generali with 14%. Generali’s chairman is Antoine Bernheim, Meyer’s successor at Lazard. A recent new entry in Mediobanca was Vincent Bolloré, one of the owners of French PM, Sarkozy.

The hedge funds moving on Generali are TCI and Algebris, which share the same address in London and are both connected to the Royal Bank of Scotland. They sent an aggressive letter to Generali’s CEO complaining about low returns, and overly high wages for Bernheim (!), but mostly the “conflict of interest” with Mediobanca. “Yesterday evening in Trieste, questions were raised and even suspicions on who are the real players in the game,” Corriere della Sera reports.

The Financial Times says that the locusts are afraid that the Italian government, through the increased presence of banker Cesare Geronzi on Mediobanca’s board, will have an undesired influence on the Mediobanca-Generali group.

Generali is currently the largest western insurance group in China.

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