Banca Generali, the « hare » of the savings that everyone wants: why is it worth so much? Dividends, consultants and top customers

« We had been looking at her for five years, we had already understood that it was an operation that could generate value. » To understand why for the CEO of Mediobanca, Alberto Nagel, Banca Generali was so important, it was enough to read the numbers. The asset management of the lion – on which Mediobanca launched an OSS with a concmand with actions by Generali – Today it manages masses for 103.8 billion that place it in fourth place in Italy in the context of managers with networks, even if the most significant figure of this figure are 71 billion in the private field, that is, customers with savings above 500 thousand euroswhich make it the third Italian reality in the sector behind Intesa Sanpaolo (251.4 billion) e Unicredit (147.2 billion). The Financial Times In the last eight years it has in fact named it six times as Best Private Bank in Italy.

The top manager

The architect of the acceleration was Gian Maria Mossa, who entered the Banca Generali in 2013 as a co -director general (after the debuts in Ras and Fideuram) and appointed CEO in 2017: One data above all, under his direction the assets have gone from the 25 billion of his arrival to the current 103.8. And likewise the consultants grew, from 1,450 ten years ago to 2,350; The offices are 300 (Mediobanca has 1,300 private bankers of which 1,181 in the premier network). Coming to the performances, the Banca Generali title has created total returns for the members of 407.3%, including dividends. In fact, the market appreciates: the ROE, that is, the profit for shareholders, is 30%: today the title travels over 52 euros, also thanks to the move of Piazzetta Cuccia. The cost-income, on the other hand, is among the lowest in the sector: 35.4%. The average portfolio managed by his consultants travels around 43.7 million, against the average Assoretes of 32. And it will be the ability of Mediobanca to hold them to make the difference with a simple bank merger: the consultants will be stimulated with « maintenance bonus » to guarantee the commercial network and that customers – and therefore their money – remain.

History

Born in 1998 within the lion with an investment of 20 million, Banca Generali today administers the assets of Italian families and companies, but at the beginning it was a simple electronic bank that had the ambition to concentrate all the activities and services regarding the management of savings in a single pole. Growth has passed by pushing on financial advice through bankers and promoters and numerous acquisitions, the first in 2000 was Prime Spa Many others followed as Banca Primavera da Intesa. Today it is absurd to a reference point in the Wealth Management because it offers investment services, advisory on the assets of families, companies, in the immobiliary, has brought the brokerage and analysis services within it, detecting Intermonte in September.

The comparison with Mediobanca

The experts who have been able to accelerate in private individuals say, introduce the concept of « Wealth Management » and expand in the upper part of the savings, bringing consultancy and administration services of the goods to a band that in the years of zero rates had been neglected by traditional credit institutions.
The market likes not only for profits and stock exchange courses, but just Because it stands out compared to competitors that are now only asset manager or that rest only on goals, and because it is a « proxy », that is, a mirror of Italian private wealth and listed on the stock exchange. « Banca Generali insists in a segment very close to what we work on, an average high range, » Nagel has in fact shown. In the new entity that would form, the weight of the masses under overall management would be almost equivalent: the 103.8 billion of Banca Generali and the 106.8 billion of the Wealth Management division of Mediobanca. Looking only at the masses attributable to private customers, the 71 billion of Banca Generali are instead of almost 14% greater than 65 billion of private masses of Mediobanca. The gap on the profits front is wider: Banca Generali in 2024 has created a net profit of 431.2 million euros (+32%), of which the recurring component stands at 339.3 million; The Wealth Management of Mediobanca instead made 219 million euros of net profits last year.