Word: berlusconis
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...green light to the takeover, Colaninno threw a wrench into Italian family-style capitalism. And in the process, he managed to step on the feet of De Benedetti and the Agnelli family, two formidable foes. He would also run into a potential conflict with future prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, when he got control of TeleMonteCarlo...
...sales and then turn around and snap up companies that actually have to compete. This is where Fiat stepped in. It has forged an alliance with EDF, financier Romain Zaleski and several banks. The consortium, called Italenergia, now controls 52% of the voting shares of Montedison. Initially, the new Berlusconi government, which owes Fiat patriarch Gianni Agnelli some thanks for his quiet but crucial support, indicated it was "neutral" on the deal. Last week, however, Italian lawmakers put forward a bill to reduce Italenergia's control to 44%. Italenergia quickly decided to water down EDF's voting rights...
Still, Commissioner Monti wasn't looking for a fight. The Italian economics professor is sufficiently conservative that he was offered the foreign ministry in Silvio Berlusconi's new right-wing Italian government. Moreover, Monti was proud of the working relationship he had forged with his American counterparts; he told TIME he had "profound respect" for the U.S. regulators and described his own agency as a "junior institution." Before Christmas, when GE's competitors called on the case officer assigned to the merger, Enrique Gonzalez-Diaz, to persuade him to start a lengthy "phase two" investigation of the deal, Gonzalez-Diaz...
...Washington and Brussels had boasted that competition policy was an area of splendid cooperation across the Atlantic. Moreover, Monti is about the least likely man in Brussels to be motivated by crude anti-Americanism. Indeed, he was offered the job of Foreign Minister in the Italian government of Silvio Berlusconi, conservative America's favorite European. In any event, GE competitors opposed to the deal are--like UTC--just as likely to be American as European. Airbus, Europe's flagship aviation company, says it supported the GE-Honeywell deal. I understand that only one airline formally opposed the merger...
...incumbent center-left government is poised for a Labour-esque landslide. The outlook is slightly brighter in France, although the left remains a fair bet to win control of both Parliament and the presidency next year. The most encouraging recent result for Europe's conservatives, the triumph of Silvio Berlusconi's center-right coalition in May's Italian election, was as much an expression of voter fatigue with the leftist government as an endorsement of Berlusconi's positions. And let's face it: any political movement with Silvio Berlusconi as its flagbearer is a movement in trouble...