Mediobanca uses the three banks to distribute securities and to bring in other investment-banking business.
Mediobanca, Italy's old wheeling and dealing investment bank, managed Telecom Italia's privatisation in 1997.
Its management's hands were tied by powerful minority shareholders, especially Mediobanca, a Milan investment bank.
Mediobanca's old influence is waning fast, as the world's big investment banks have homed in on Milan.
The influence of Mediobanca, a Milanese merchant bank at the heart of many Italian corporate alliances, has declined.
It is worth noting that Mr Berlusconi has an indirect stake in Mediobanca.
Another loser is Mediobanca, a secretive, manipulative and hitherto all-powerful Milanese investment bank.
And UniCredito Italiano is likely to have its own ideas on Mediobanca's future.
Generali's non-executive chairman, Antoine Bernheim, is a partner at Mediobanca and sits on its board, as does Mr Gutty.
Commerzbank, in turn, has small stakes in both Generali and Mediobanca.
April 23 (Reuters) - Italian investment bank Mediobanca said on Monday that Ennio Doris, the head of asset management company Mediolanum, had quit as board member.
These two banks, with UniCredito Italiano, own 25% of Mediobanca, but, in an odd inversion of roles, it is the investment bank that has usually pulled the strings.
Compart's backers, which include Mediobanca, an Italian investment bank, feared that if they did not tidy up Montedison's financial structure themselves, someone else would do it for them.
There are no signs of Mediobanca relinquishing its grasp: last month, it announced a capital increase and the sale of some corporate stakes in order to take up its rights in a Generali share issue.
The plan also involves parachuting in as chief executive of the Fiat parent company Enrico Bondi, an old Mediobanca hand who made his reputation turning round the Ferruzzi agro-chemicals business and, latterly, sorting out troubled Telecom Italia.
Unicredito owns 9.5% of Mediobanca, an investment bank which in turn has 1.1% of Commerzbank and 14% of Generali, an insurer that owns 9.9% of the German bank, with which it also has an exclusive insurance-distribution deal.
This has the backing of Mediobanca, a Milanese investment bank that used to pull all the strings in corporate Italy, but has seen its star wane since the death of Enrico Cuccia, its nonagenarian boss, two years ago.
"A lot of the benefits of being in Switzerland have fallen away in terms of secrecy, therefore if you look at a convenient market, particularly for a wealthy Asian individual, Singapore fits the bill, " said Chris Wheeler, a bank analyst with Mediobanca.
Second, the Mediobanca-Berlusconi plan would involve the possible participation of (not strikingly Italian) Volkswagen, which would (it is said) take a 39% stake in a company grouping premium brands such as Ferrari, Maserati and Alfa Romeo, all now part of the Fiat stable.
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