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Vincenzo Maranghi
65, Italian
Why He Matters: He sits atop an extraordinary, convoluted empire of Italian businesses
Location: Milan
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Posted Sunday, Dec. 1, 2002; 15.43GMT
The investment bank Maranghi heads, Mediobanca SpA, plays a central role in Italy's corporate life that is unparalleled elsewhere in Europe. His legendary predecessor, Enrico Cuccia, wove a Byzantine network of alliances and cross shareholdings with the Agnellis and other leading business families that ensured Mediobanca for decades dominated the world of Italian finance. Maranghi took over the bank after Cuccia's death in 2000 at a time when international investment banks were muscling in on Italy. He doesn't command the same loyalty as Cuccia and has had to battle with restive shareholders, two of whom are Italian banks trying to compete for his business, UniCredito and Capitalia.
But this year he twice demonstrated Mediobanca's continuing clout: in June, Mediobanca made a surprise bid for 34% of Ferrari, snatching the Fiat-owned automaker away from rival UniCredito, which had a mandate to do a public offering.
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It would be better if everything were examined in greater silence.
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And in September, he fired the chairman of Italy's biggest insurer, Assicurazioni Generali, who has since disclosed that he was bound by a secret accord with Maranghi to give him inside details of what was happening at the company (Mediobanca is the insurer's largest shareholder). Italian authorities are currently probing the legality of the arrangement.
Maranghi briefly worked as a financial journalist in the 1950s before joining Mediobanca but continues Cuccia's tradition of intense secrecy. The bank won't release a picture of him, and he never gives interviews. In a rare public appearance in July, he told a parliamentary committee investigating Fiat woes that, "it would be better if everything were examined in greater silence."
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