FONDIARIA REARRANGES AGM AFTER INQUORATE MEETING

Italian insurer Fondiaria has rescheduled its aborted AGM of April 30 for May 30. The meeting was put back after it proved inquorate due to the principal shareholders staying away after a Florence regional court delayed a ruling until May 6 on a request by the Fondiaria management for the voting rights of five new shareholders to be suspended. Fondiaria contends that the five shareholders — which include US investment bank JP Morgan, Germany’s Commerzbank, locally based bank Interbanca and Italian financier Francesco Micheli — are allies of rival domestic insurer SAI and will elect board members sympathetic to SAI in any vote. SAI has been involved in an increasingly bitter struggle to take over Fondiaria and has a five-year call option to buy the stakes of the cited companies.