[23] Alberto Nagel led the expansion of Mediobanca’s Corporate & Investment Banking activities in international markets (non-domestic revenues accounted for 40% of the Group’s top line in 2023 and are expected to reach 55% by 2026), which included opening branch offices in Paris (2004), Luxembourg (2005), Frankfurt, Madrid and New York (2007), London (2008), and Istanbul (2013).

[27] In May 2008 Alberto Nagel designed the setting up of CheBanca!, a retail which initially operated exclusively through digital channels, with the aim of diversifying the group’s sources of funding by bringing in €13bn in deposits in the first three years of its activity.

would gradually evolve into a wealth manager in support of the strategy devised by Nagel, and the new, multichannel service model would be consolidated in 2015 with the acquisition of a selected area of Barclay’s Italian retail activities.

[34] These two acquisitions in the asset management area were complemented by the addition, in 2017, of RAM Active Investments,[35] based in Switzerland, and the three together would prove fundamental in completing Mediobanca’s progression towards the specialist financial group model which was Nagel’s objective following the change of strategy previously implemented.

[36] In 2016 Nagel unveiled the Group’s strategic plan up to 2019, one of the main pillars of which was to accelerate development of the Wealth Management activities in synergy with the Corporate & Investment Banking division.

This objective provided the rational for the acquisition of full control of Banca Esperia,[37] which Nagel announced when the plan was unveiled, and served as the basis from which Mediobanca Private Banking was created.

[48] The CEO’s strategy is to deliver growth for the bank that will enable it to return €3.7bn to its shareholders over the course of the three years, equal to 45% of Mediobanca’s market capitalization at the time when the plan was unveiled, corresponding to a payout ratio of 70%.

Mediobanca Premier is a bank specializing in wealth management and investments for Italian households, which the CEO described as the “single most important project” in the Strategic Plan 2023-26 “One Brand-One Culture”.

[53] During the press conference Nagel spoke of the “huge potential” of the segment targeted by Mediobanca Premier,[54] which is what drove the decision to promote Mediobanca-branded offices in the main cities of Italy, a historical change in the development of a brand that has been seen as exclusive and considered inaccessible for virtually the whole of the bank’s history.

In line with the bank’s tradition, Nagel chooses to maintain a reserved profile, not giving interviews or making public statements outside of the official occasions in which he engages with financial analysts and journalists.

[57] Despite his reserved style, Alberto Nagel made decisive changes to the governance of Mediobanca and intervened significantly in the management of the group’s investee companies in the years between 2008 and 2011 primarily.

[59] Adopting the same reserved, pragmatic approach Alberto Nagel helped rescue the insurance group Fondiaria-SAI, to which it had an exposure of over €1bn, with its sale to Unipol in 2013, thus removing possible effects on the stability of Mediobanca.