Word: marinotti
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...less deadly a competitor is massive, baldheaded Franco Marinotti, 70, boss of Snia Viscosa, Italy's biggest producer of synthetic textile fibers. Marinotti, who preaches a cold-blooded business philosophy ("Gratitude is a sentiment possessed mainly by dogs"), did his postwar rebuilding without a cent of U.S. aid. Despite this self-imposed handicap, he pushed Snia into the front rank of industry by automating to cut costs and by instituting a research program so successful in turning up new fibers that, as he boasts, even the U.S.'s Allied Chemical Corp. has signed up to produce Snia...
Oldtime Pitchman. As it turned out, Marinotti's hard-driving leadership was more than enough for the job. Unlike other war-stricken Italian firms, Snia Viscosa never took a penny in American aid. Marinotti sold the company's skyscraper headquarters in Milan, converted other negotiable assets into cash, trimmed payrolls and expenses. Without going into debt or accepting government handouts, Snia Viscosa was producing 55,000 tons of fiber annually by 1947 (present production: 135,000 tons annually). But with productive capacity vastly greater than Italy's consumer market, Snia Viscosa had to export or topple...
Peddling his yarn like an oldtime pitchman, Marinotti personally established new markets in India, South Korea and Russia (where his ability to outdrink the Russians proved a great advantage). To get around customs barriers, he set up subsidiaries in Spain, France, South Africa, Mexico, Argentina and Brazil. To cut rising costs, Snia Viscosa spent more than $30 million on new plants, pushed production of its own raw materials, power and machinery. Marinotti expanded the company's experimental research center, put 400 technicians to developing a full line of artificial fibers to compete on world markets...
Renaissance Man. Today Snia Viscosa is the world's largest exporter of textile fiber. With growing foreign markets, Marinotti cut prices 6% to 10% last year in a bid to increase the firm's sales in Italy as well. Result: sales in some lines jumped as much as 40%. Marinotti is now dickering to build new plants in India, Germany and the U.S., will soon travel to the U.S. to push American sales and promote a virtually tearproof synthetic paper called Papertex (TIME, July...
With a personal fortune of at least $20 million in Snia Viscosa stock and other assets, Textileman Marinotti dreams of forsaking his sideline for his main interest. "Art," he says, "is the only explanation for life." He has visions of a retirement spent painting, writing poetry, cooking (favorite dish: chicken à la Strogoff) and collecting the great art of the past. But Artist Marinotti is too much of a businessman for that...