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Zach Mecelis, who is (and what he thinks) the head of the Covalis fund pirouettes on Enel

1 year ago babelfish

Zach Mecelis, who is (and what he thinks) the head of the Covalis fund pirouettes on Enel

Ideas, passions and contradictions of Zach Mecelis, the founder of the Covalis fund which exploits the Meloni government on Enel (criticizing Scaroni with some somersaults)

Today, Wednesday May 3, is the last day for Enel's shareholder funds to register for next week's vote, when the meeting for the renewal of the company's board of directors will be held. In case of failure to register, they will not be able to express their opinion.

THE THREE LISTS FOR ENEL

The government, through the Ministry of the Economy (shareholder with 23.6 percent), has proposed for Enel the names of Flavio Cattaneo as the new managing director and Paolo Scaroni as the new president, plus four directors.

– For further information, read also: Scaroni, Zoppini and the great hustle and bustle on Enel

Assogestioni, the Italian association of asset management companies, also presented its own list (representing around 1.8 per cent of Enel's capital) and the Caymanian fund Covalis Capital did the same (less than 1 per cent hundred).

COVALIS'S CONTROVERSY TOWARDS THE GOVERNMENT

Covalis Capital had placed itself – at least initially, but then softened the tone – in indirect controversy with the government of Giorgia Meloni, accusing it of "opacity " in the nomination process. Covalis founder Zach Mecelis also said he wanted "a diverse and independent board of directors that reflects the international nature of the company and its shareholder base."

In a recent letter sent to Enel's shareholders, Covalis recommended voting for his own list rather than that of Assogestioni – supported however by proxy advisors , and therefore favored -, arguing that it is not independent.

– For further information, read also: All the opinions of the proxy advisors in view of the Enel shareholders' meeting

"Mazzucchelli is the only candidate for president who has the requisites of independent," reads the document. That is Marco Mazzucchelli, banker, proposed by Covalis – and supported by proxy advisor Glass Lewis – as the new president of Enel in place of Scaroni.

YET, LACALLE…

However, the Spanish economist Daniel Lacalle , present on Covalis' list for Enel, had explained to the newspaper La Verità that “our proposal for an independent board of directors does not concern individuals, but shareholder democracy and investor confidence. There is no personality problem. As an investor, I have met Mr. Scaroni several times, an esteemed professional as an oil and gas executive and banker […]. I believe that the decision to appoint the top management of a global company with an international reach like Enel must take into account the opinion of all international shareholders and investors in a transparent and open way”.

MECELIS INTERVIEW WITH REPUBBLICA

Interviewed in mid-April by Repubblica , Mecelis declared that the candidates on the Covalis list, “with their expertise can also give added value in the international positioning of the company, which is the largest Italian company by market capitalisation. It is not a hostile act”, he specified, “but we want to increase dialogue with all stakeholders ”.

“The fact that we haven't indicated a potential CEO,” he continued, “means that we don't want to make a revolution. We have a constructive, dialogue, evolutionary approach, we want Enel to improve its voting participation processes and have governance in line with international best practices ”. And he concluded as follows: "we are not against anyone, if our list gets the majority of votes we could launch a process with the board to find the best CEO, including Cattaneo".

WHO IS ZACH MECELIS

Zilvinas Michelis known as "Zach" is a 43-year-old Lithuanian entrepreneur trained in the United States, where he started working in the finance sector. He was an analyst at investment firm Zimmer Lucas Partners and then a portfolio manager at GLG Partners LP, where – according to Yahoo! Finance – has developed its "investment management strategy", focusing on European companies that provide public utility services: such as Enel, in fact.

In 2009 he moved to Noble Group, which is engaged in commodity trading. In 2011, he launched Arc Asset Management. Finally, in 2012, he founded Covalis Capital, a hedge fund based in the British Cayman Islands that invests in infrastructure, utilities, renewable energy and raw materials; has approximately $1.5 billion in assets under management.

THE PASSION FOR THE PROLORUSSIAN ZEROHEDGE BLOG?

On Twitter, the name Zach Mecelis refers to a single account, @ZachZmecelis. It is possible that it is the profile of the founder of Covalis Capital, since it is a Lithuanian user who tweets mainly about finance-related issues, and relaunching tweets from Donald Trump, Joe Biden and Lacalle years ago, the Spanish economist present on the Covalis list for the board of Enel.

The profile has been inactive for about a year, and generally little used: just 55 followers and a handful of tweets in ten years of membership on the social network.

Taking a look at the tweets, Mecelis's passion for ZeroHedge , a controversial finance and geopolitics blog, emerges in particular. ZeroHedge is very critical of the Biden administration and last year, a few days before the start of the war in Ukraine, he was accused by US intelligence of amplifying Kremlin propaganda: the site, among other things, claimed that the White House was fomenting panic over the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which it did.

Here are some retweets from @ZachZmecelis from ZeroHedge 's account. The blog uses as an avatar a photo of Tyler Durden, the anti-hero of Chuck Palahniuk's novel Fight Club (played by Brad Pitt in the film).

GORDON CHANG AND ESG INVESTMENTS

The Chang referred to in ZeroHedge's latest tweet, re-shared by @ZachZmecelis, is Gordon Chang , an American columnist, television commentator and writer of Chinese origins, but strongly hostile to the Beijing regime. In February 2022 Chang met Giorgia Meloni – whom Zach Mecelis criticized for the appointments in Enel – on the occasion of the conference of American conservatives in Florida.

Zach Mecelis is also a supporter of ESG, those investments that pay attention to their environmental ( environmental ), social ( social ) and managerial ( governance ) impact which are usually attacked in conservative and "right-wing" circles. More specifically, ESG critics argue that attention to sustainability principles can undermine the economic returns of investments, making them fade into the background, when instead they should represent the priority objective of investment companies.

In early 2021 Mecelis told the Financial Times that “there is currently chaos around ESG [because] there are many different rating systems. Globally, ESG will be a more investable opportunity when it is consolidated” through shared standards.

This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/economia/zach-mecelis-covalis/ on Wed, 03 May 2023 09:30:22 +0000.