Intesa Sanpaolo: looking inward again Running a bank is becoming an even more perilous occupation than managing a football team. Since June four European banks - Royal Bank of Scotland, Raiffeisen, Danske and now Italy's Intesa Sanpaolo - have replaced their chief executives. At Danske and Intesa, the departing manager had less than two years in the job. In neither case has the reason given been satisfactory. There is no shortage of theories about why Intesa's Enrico Cucchiani left at the weekend. Disagreements with the chairman and the foundations that control a quarter of the bank's shares, a management style that alienated senior colleagues and a faltering financial performance have all been blamed. The bank's carefully worded statements give nothing away, leading outsiders to wonder whether this is the swift replacement of a poorly performing manager or the revenge of traditionalists who disliked Mr Cucchiani's strategy. Equity investors can only watch in frustration. Mr Cucchiani's tenure was reasonable, but not spectacular. Since he started in December 2011 Intesa's shares have performed in line with the FTSE MIB (an 18 per cent gain) and outperformed rival UniCredit but underperformed the Stoxx Europe Banks index. Operationally, he cut costs but the good work has been more than undone by falling income and rising impairment charges. His efforts to extract the bank from its stake in Telecom Italia are welcome but the main drivers of the shake-up in TI's shareholder structure came from elsewhere in the financial sector. Carlo Messina, the new man in charge, might well turn out to be a better steward than Mr Cucchiani. But the impression left by the change is that Italian banking is as inward-looking as ever. With the political system on the verge of collapse (again), what shareholders need is reassurance, not turmoil. What a shame Intesa's board has failed to provide that.