The sad story of Alitalia is the latest example (at least we hope) of the dissipation of a large part of our production system carried out by union between bad politics, a corporate and backward trade unionism, and a capitalism based more than on the rules of the market, on opaque relations with the public powers. Gianni Dragoni, a talented journalist for Il Sole 24 Ore, a specialist in analyzing financial statements and in uncovering the perverse interweaving between private finance and state coffers, describes this page of recent Italian economic history in a massive 300-page volume (Courageous captains – Chiarelettere 16,60 Euros) which from the subtitle clearly explains what actually happened: "The twenty knights who privatized Alitalia and sank the country."
What happened in our flag company, now rightly renamed "flag company", starting from 2008, when that is Air France made an offer to take over Alitalia on conditions that Prodi himself, then Prime Minister, he judged convenient given the state's inability to manage society economically. The opposition of the trade unions, of the ultras of left led by Bertinotti, of the Alloy who wanted to defend the role of Malpensa airport at all costs, made the head of the French Company escape, Spinetta, and led to the resignation of the president of Alitalia Prato who, as he left, said disconsolately: “this society has a curse, only an exorcist can try to save it.”
The role of exorcist was assumed by Silvio Berlusconi that for electoral reasons he found it convenient to promise that everything would continue as before. Once the elections were won, the Berlusconi government, with the help of Banca Intesa, he began to get busy to set up a consortium of entrepreneurs to whom to entrust the resurrection of Alitalia. I find twenty entrepreneurs, none of whom had any airline experience, other than an industrial partner with a minority stake (25%) identified in AirFrance. The operation sets up as a controlled failure with the new partners taking some of the old Alitalia's assets and leaving all the debts and over 7000 people deemed redundant in the bad company. The Italian tax payer in other words it comes called to pay debts done by the old managements e ad take on a rich redundancy fund for the 7000 redundancies left at home for very long periods to take them to retirement.
Nonetheless the new Alitalia fails to take off. Even with the monopoly granted to it on the Rome-Milan route and the consequent increase in ticket prices, it was not possible to bring the Company's accounts back into balance. After three years of bankruptcy, the managing director Rocco Sabelli throws in the towel.
But who are these shareholders whom Berlusconi thanked by calling them patriots? There are all the best names in Italian entrepreneurship except Fiat and Mediobanca: from Colaninno (leader) to Marcegaglia, from Riva to Tronchetti, from Benetton to Gavio to finish with Ligresti and Bellavista Caltagirone. Who holds this Brancaleone army together, within which, however, there are different degrees of enthusiasm, it is Corrado Passera, CEO of Banca Intesa which has proclaimed itself the system bank, i.e. a bank that looks beyond the interests of its shareholders, to instead take charge of the more general interests of the entire country. However, it does not seem that the so-called system operations have brought about a real benefit either for the shareholders or for the country because these operations tend to confuse responsibilities, they are not based on effective industrial capabilities, but seek to network different interests and often opposed, mainly responding to the immediate needs of politics.
The description of these brave captains that Gianni Dragoni carries out with meticulous malice, outlines a real one "gallery of horrors" of Italian capitalism based not so much on merit, but on both financial and political relationships and plots, and explains why the Italian system continues to fall apart and the whole country has essentially been at a standstill for over 15 years. The judgment confidentially forwarded to the White House by theformer ambassador to Rome Ronald Spogli: "The Alitalia saga is a sad reminder of how things work in Italy and Berlusconi's weak adherence to some basic principles of free-market capitalism. The way this deal has been handled has given the world a clear reminder of Italy's limitations on investment."
This is why very few from abroad come to invest in our country. And then we complain about the brutality of Marchionne who left Mediobanca precisely because he didn't want to join any more or less good salon! Mario Monti is well aware that in addition to putting the state in order, he must also change many rules in the Italian private system including greater mobility also in the ownership of companies where shareholders and managers who do not have satisfactory results must give way to transparent market systems. In short, for Monti there are many forts to be dismantled. The mention that the head of government made of it when speaking to the Milan Stock Exchange shows that he is perfectly aware of it.
