Word: roma
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...over the past 10 years. After European monetary union and a round of bank consolidations, Italian finance got too big to fit on Cuccia's desk. The banks that were the key investors in and allies of Mediobanca have all done mergers or deals with other banks. Banca di Roma in particular, despite owning 9.5% of Mediobanca, clearly isn't on the team anymore; it's lined up with Fiat in the Montedison bid. Cuccia's death at 92 a year ago - followed by a grotesque episode in which his corpse was stolen in a failed attempt to extract ransom...
...Piazza Martiri dell'Olivetta. Start your visit with a coffee or cocktail at La Grippa, a waterfront bar well situated for watching handsome strollers drawn by such nearby shops as Armani and Celine. But don't linger too long. Head for the town's friendly information office at Via Roma 35, just behind the piazza, and get maps for a bracing walk along the shore. A short path, 20 minutes each way, will take you past the church and castle of San Giorgio to the local lighthouse at the tip of a promontory. A longer hike brings...
EARTH ANGEL Maybe Roma Downey really is watching over each and every one of us, but you will still feel a lot better with the Digital Angel strapped to your wrist. This device, which took best in show at last week's Internet Wireless World, has a sensor that monitors your vital signs--heart rate, blood pressure and so on--and a tiny satellite receiver that plots your exact location at all times. If anything goes awry, a transmitter alerts the medics and tells them where you are. And if you are really in trouble, it will page Roma...
...Tomaso and Anna Longo took out a loan with the Banca di Roma to buy a two-bedroom house in the fashionable Prati section near the heart of Rome. The interest was a painful 12.5%, but the Longos had little alternative, since that was about the average rate on a home mortgage in those days. Anna, a civil servant, says that life became a matter of pinching lire. "We couldn't ever go away anywhere," she recalls. "We didn't even go out to the cinema...
...Then a miracle happened. Italy's efforts to join the euro led to a steep drop in interest rates. By April 1998 the market average for new loans had fallen below 8.3%. Tomaso, a lawyer, noticed that this appeared to render his Banca di Roma loan illegal under a 1996 anti-usury act. The law prohibits creditors from charging more than one-and-a-half times current rates. Tomaso went to the bank and asked to renegotiate; he first was turned down, and then the bank offered a deal with a hefty refinancing fee. But the Longos kept pushing...