Word: cuccia
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...salotto buono, "good drawing room," was held together largely through the shrewd deals put together by Enrico Cuccia, the legendary head of Mediobanca who died last year. As a result of rather Byzantine legislation, Mediobanca was Italy's only merchant bank for decades, which meant virtually no big deals were done without Cuccia. But by the late 1990s, the Cuccia-Agnelli alliance began falling apart. Mediobanca sided with Colaninno when he and his wealthy backers made their move for Telecom Italia. It was a direct challenge to the Agnellis, who had installed their own man to run the former state...
...making history when he launched his hostile takeover of Telecom, then the largest such deal in Europe. While not unknown in Italian business circles, he had neither the clout nor the name of the man he had replaced at Olivetti, Carlo De Benedetti. But with the help of Cuccia and the center-left government of Massimo D'Alema, which gave a 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...
...Colaninno's ascent was short-lived, as he turned out to be unlucky in his alliances. Cuccia died, and D'Alema was forced to resign as Prime Minister, only to be eventually succeeded by Berlusconi this spring. Then the market turned against Colaninno in March, punishing the share prices of Olivetti and Telecom Italia, and causing some concern among Colaninno's investors, largely 175 businessmen from Mantua who had backed him in the hopes of a quick return on their money. No new investors were on the horizon, and a plan to raise $8 billion in cash through a conversion...
...Giancarlo Galli, a biographer of both Cuccia and the Agnelli clan, notes that for a short time before Colaninno emerged, the Agnelli family had virtual control of Telecom with just .8% of shares. "Italian finance has never really functioned with money," he says. "It's been more like trading baseball cards...
...provide medium-term credit to industry during postwar reconstruction. Mediobanca steadily built relation- ships and acquired shares, winning seats in the county's top boardrooms. By the 1980s, it was said that practically any deal in Italy needed the blessing of the bank's politically savvy chairman, Enrico Cuccia. A so-called Northern Galaxy - including Trieste-based insurance giant Assicurazioni Generali, BCI, and Florentine insurer La Fondiaria - revolved around Cuccia's office behind La Scala opera house. Fiat was long regarded as an ally. That extraordinary power has been chipped away over the past 10 years. After European monetary union...