Famed Italian dealmaker and Piaggio CEO Colaninno dies
19/08/2023 13:02
By Crispian Balmer
ROME, Aug 19 (Reuters) - Entrepreneur Roberto Colaninno,
chairman and CEO of scooter maker Piaggio and one of Italy's
best-known dealmakers, has died, his investment company IMMSI
said on Saturday.
He turned 80 last week. No cause of death was given.
Colaninno was a central figure in the country's industrial
landscape who managed to turn around a number of failing
companies, but also left a mixed corporate legacy.
He is most famous for his surprise $58 billion leveraged
buyout of Telecom Italia TLIT.MI in 1999, at the time the
world's largest hostile takeover.
Many investors applauded him for masterminding the deal, but
allies grew disenchanted over his plans to cut the debt mountain
he had created, and forced him to sell control of the group to
tyre-maker Pirelli PIRC.MI just two years later.
While Telecom Italia struggled to recover from the debt
burden that drained its finances for years, Colaninno emerged
from the deal with a fortune of his own, enabling him to buy
IMMSI IMSI.MI , a telecom real estate business that he turned
into an investment company.
In 2003, after his efforts to take over carmaker Fiat were
rebuffed, he turned his attention to Piaggio, maker of the Vespa
scooter, which had fallen on hard times.
He pulled it back from the brink, rapidly expanding its
activities in Asia, especially India, China and Vietnam. The
group posted record first-half results in July.
With Piaggio returning to profit, Colaninno looked to revive
another struggling Italian icon, national carrier Alitalia,
investing heavily in the airline in 2008 and becoming chairman
in the process.
However, like many before him, he failed to turn the company
around, and it was eventually shuttered. He was sent to trial
last year along with 13 other defendants accused of fraudulent
bankruptcy at the airline. He denied wrongdoing.
The case has yet to come to court.
Colaninno started his career at auto parts maker Fiamm, then
hooked up with one of the giants of Italian business, Carlo De
Benedetti. They founded a finance company, Sogefi, that bought
Fiamm from its British owner and transformed it into one of the
most successful car parts suppliers in Europe.
De Benedetti subsequently asked Colaninno to take charge of
his floundering Olivetti company. Colaninno ditched the firm's
loss-making computer unit and focused on the telephone business
- which he subsequently used as a vehicle to launch the Telecom
Italia bid.
He is survived by two sons, Matteo and Michele, and his wife
Oretta.
(Reporting by Crispian Balmer; Editing by David Holmes)
((crispian.balmer@thomsonreuters.com))