Glass, Lewis & Co., LLC has recommended that shareholders at Italy’s Enel SpA reject the Italian government’s candidate for chairman, Paolo Scaroni, and back a candidate from an alternative slate, according to a report prepared by the proxy adviser which was seen by Bloomberg.
(Bloomberg) — Glass, Lewis & Co., LLC has recommended that shareholders at Italy’s Enel SpA reject the Italian government’s candidate for chairman, Paolo Scaroni, and back a candidate from an alternative slate, according to a report prepared by the proxy adviser which was seen by Bloomberg.
London-based fund Covalis Capital LLP proposed the alternative slate, including Marco Mazzucchelli as chairman, after Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni nominated industry veterans Flavio Cattaneo and Scaroni to be the state-controlled utility’s next chief executive officer and chairman respectively. Glass Lewis’s recommendations call for investors to vote for Mazzucchelli over Scaroni, saying he’d better safeguard “board-level independent oversight and serve as a better counterbalance to the presence of the CEO.”
The 76-year-old Scaroni is a former CEO at Eni SpA — another state-controlled firm — where he worked to deepen ties with Russia’s Gazprom. He has widely been seen as a compromise nominee for the post at Enel, in the wake of wrangling between Meloni and her junior coalition partners. An ally of ex-Premier Silvio Berlusconi, Scaroni is currently chairman of soccer club AC Milan.
The recommendations from Glass Lewis could signal the start of a proxy fight at the company’s shareholders meeting May 10, though one adviser, Institutional Shareholder Services Inc., has told investors to back Scaroni, Bloomberg reported.
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