Better Tesla or Italian SMEs? Here are the performances of those that beat Musk

"We attended the Tesla meeting where Elon Musk's $1 trillion salary was voted in. We voted against it like other Italian and foreign pension funds, but that gigantic remuneration was approved anyway. I am wondering, and this is my personal opinion, whether at this point it would not be better to have more Italian SMEs in our portfolio'. Speaking is Libero Giunta, head of the finance function of the Cometa pension fund, the one for metalworkers, the largest in Italy in terms of assets under management (15 billion and 350 million euro) and members (502 thousand). The occasion was the conference on Wednesday 19 November as part of the Salone Sri in Milan: the subject of the meeting was the coordinated voting project of the negotiated pension funds united in Assofondipensione.

Giunta was among the speakers and the provocation launched on Tesla and Italian SMEs immediately received the endorsement of Andrea Mariani, secretary of Assofondipensione and general manager of the Pegaso pension fund.

Not only governance then. Not least because, stressed Cometa's head of finance, 'in addition to the issue of voting, there is the performance target for our members'.

Giunta's provocation on pension funds' portfolios has become a topic of reflection. And, data in hand, there are Italian SMEs listed in Milan with excellent governance and equally excellent performance. Using data from the Osservatorio Esg sulle Pmi di Piazza Affari, we have thus made a selection of companies from among the 113 that in 2024 (the eighth edition of the Observatory) responded to the questionnaire created together with Bicocca University.

Of the 70 companies that have consistently answered the questions of the ESG Observatory over the past three years, we have identified those that have the best governance according to the parameters developed by the Bicocca University: among them are ten with better results than Tesla over the past twelve months.