MILAN/ROME, April 9 (Reuters) - Italy's government is leaning towards naming Lorenzo Mariani as the new chief executive of Leonardo, four sources said on Thursday, ousting Roberto Cingolani in what would be a major change at the helm of the country's leading defence group.
Mariani is a former executive at the defence and aerospace conglomerate, now serving as managing director for Italy at missile maker MBDA, which is jointly owned by Airbus, BAE Systems and Leonardo.
"Almost," a senior government official told Reuters, when asked whether Mariani had been chosen to succeed Cingolani. The other sources confirmed the name of Mariani as the favourite for the job, with an announcement expected as soon as Thursday.
Italy owns a little more than 30% of Leonardo through the economy ministry.
Earlier this week, a source told Reuters that Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni was pushing for a leadership change at the company, whose shares have soared by 780% since Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
Nominations at state-controlled companies typically involve protracted and at times fraught discussions between political leaders, with rival factions jockeying for influence and names often changed at the eleventh hour.
(Reporting by Angelo Amante, Elvira Pollina and Giuseppe Fonte, editing by Gavin Jones)
By Elvira Pollina, Angelo Amante and Giuseppe Fonte
