A proxy adviser stepped in yesterday to recommend shareholders vote against a liability action brought against the CEO of Leonardo SpA. The action was promoted by Bluebell Partners, a hedge fund which owns 25 shares of the billion-dollar Italian defense contractor at the heart of ItalyGate.
Notable is that a micro-shareholder, as Bluebell is with Leonardo, could wield such influence. Also notable are the accounts in Italian media that Bluebell is backed by powerful forces, the alleged sources of its outsized impact.
IlSussidiario.net compared the Bluebell-Leonardo relationship to David vs Goliath, but asks this: “what if it turns out that little David was actually backed by powerful allies?”
Sussidiario goes on to report (translated from Italian):
“The hypothesis that the Bluebell fund could be supported by influential friendships is more than a rumor and has been circulating for months now.”
“Even the most attentive will not go unnoticed by the visibility that some of the main Italian news outlets usually reserve for the actions of the ‘activist’ fund. A visibility in some ways unexpected, if one reflects on the real weight of BlueBell Partners within a company of the caliber of Leonardo. That some publishers have interests in common with the holders of the London-based fund? That the same fund is supported by allies interested in discrediting the leaders of a strategic reality for the national economy? Speculatory funds, overseas allies, heavy competitors: many hypotheses put on the plate by observers. It remains to be clarified whether, in this battle, David is really just a little shepherd boy armed with a sling or, on the contrary, can hide and count on the support and protection of influential allies.”
Bluebell is a London-based hedge fund headed by a team of Italian financiers known as “activist” investors. The firm reportedly works closely with large U.S. activist funds such as Paul Singer’s Elliott Management and Jana Partners founded by Barry Rosenstein.
Its co-founders, Giuseppe Bivona and Marco Taricco, have several decades combined experience working at globalist financial companies Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Lehman Brothers and JP Morgan. Both founders were educated in the States and both have worked in New York and also in Europe in cities such as London and Milan.
Bluebell ostensibly moved against Leonardo CEO Alessandro Profumo in the wake of his being sentenced to six years imprisonment for false accounting while in his previous position of chairman of Italian bank Banca Monte de Paschi di Siena.
The timing of the recent developments is notable however, as Profumo’s infractions occurred between 2012 and 2015 and that in October 2020 Leonardo publicly backed the CEO saying “conditions did not exist” to warrant his resignation.
In December allegations emerged that intelligence officers took part in an operation to hack the Nov. 3 U.S. election using satellites owned and operated by Leonardo. That investigation continues.