Italy defence firm Leonardo appoints former minister Cingolani as CEO

ROME (Reuters) -Italy's Leonardo has appointed former energy and environment minister Roberto Cingolani as chief executive officer and general manager, the defence group said in a statement.

Shareholders earlier on Tuesday approved a new board, backing a slate of eight candidates submitted by Italy's Treasury, the leading investor in Leonardo with a 30.2% stake, including Cingolani and former NATO ambassador to Afghanistan Stefano Pontecorvo, who was appointed chairman.

In an unusual move, the remaining four board members were elected from a list submitted by U.S. investment firm GreenWood Investors and hedge fund Sachem Head, while a rival list from Italian institutional investors' club Assogestioni was defeated.

"Sachem Head supports the company's current strategy and believes that the newly elected board has the right mix of skills and experience to surface significant shareholder value at Leonardo," Scott Ferguson, the founder and portfolio manager of the hedge fund, told Reuters.

"We believe that the company will emerge as a true European aerospace and defense champion in the coming years," he added.

Leonardo has benefited from rising government spending on defence in the wake of the Ukraine war, but has been less profitable than competitors such as Germany's Rheinmetall and Britain's BAE Systems.

Cingolani, who has a background as a physicist and was previously Leonardo's chief technology and innovation officer, has informally advised Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni on energy policy in recent months.

The 61-year-old former minister, who has no experience at the top of a listed company, succeeds former banker Alessandro Profumo, who had been Leonardo's chief executive for six years.

Lorenzo Mariani, head of the Italian unit of European missile maker MBDA, has been appointed Leonardo's co-general manager, according to the company's statement.

(Reporting by Alvise Armellini and Elisa Anzolin; Additional reporting by Svea Herbst-Bayliss; Editing by Alexander Smith)