That the top management of the Cassa Depositi e Prestiti were destined to change at the end of their mandate, that is, at the beginning of next year, was taken for granted by most. The President Franco Bassanini and the Ad Giovanni Gorno Tempini they played a excellent work transforming the Cassa into a strong protagonist of the Italian economic system, but after many years a rotation was in the natural order of things.
Therefore, the reasons why the Government would be in the process of deciding on a change of management a few months before the natural expiry are not very clear and without any problems within the Board or in the management of the Cassa. Beyond the value of the people who it seems will be indicated for the new top management (Claudio Costamagna president and Fabio Gallia AD) it would be good for the Government to clarify which mission it wants to entrust to the Cassa and with what financial means it will be possible to support a possible further expansion of the Cassa's presence in the shareholding structure of Italian companies.
In the meantime, it would be desirable for the strategists of Palazzo Chigi, led by the former CEO of Luxottica, Andrea Guerra, to clarify to public opinion what episodes have undermined relations between the top management of the Cassa and the Government. In the absence of official clarifications, the rumors in financial circles underline three problems: Acciaierie di Taranto, Sace, and Telecom. In the first case, the Cassa was unable to make a direct intervention in the company's capital because the statutes forbid it to enter companies that have loss-making balance sheets. In short, the Cassa cannot become a chronic hospital for hospitalizing companies in crisis due, as in the case of Taranto, to confused laws and inability to manage politics. And it would be good if Renzi and his advisers did not change this orientation.
The case of Sace which many would like to transform into an export bank is more complex. Certainly in this case there is a power struggle between the top management of the Cassa and those of Sace, but there are also very serious issues related to the repercussions of the transformation of the export credit insurance company into a bank because this would also entail for Cassa entry under the supervision of the ECB and therefore the capital constraints deriving from it. With the paradoxical consequence of curbing the operations of the Cassa instead of expanding it, as one would like.
The third issue is related to Telecom and the battle for broadband. Bassanini has done everything to try to force Telecom to make the necessary investments to provide our country with an infrastructure that is indispensable for increasing the competitiveness of the entire system. But Telecom for the moment seems to aim more at defending its copper network than at replacing it with a new one. And on this the clash was very hard, so much so that it seems that Telecom was toasted to the release of the first rumors about the change of the top of the Cassa. But it doesn't seem that Recchi and Patuano actually have reason to celebrate.
now Bollorè is about to take a leading position in the Telecom shareholding structure and will certainly want to dictate the lines of his strategy. But it does not seem that the Government is willing to hand over the command of a strategic company like Telecom at the very moment in which investments in the network worth many billions of Euros are about to start. So will the Cassa also want to enter the capital of Telecom to balance the French Vivendì, and therefore will a renationalisation of Telecom be carried out?
Definitely in Italian politics and in the cultural world the push for a greater role of the state in industry is increasingly strong, in short, for the creation of a new Iris (suitable for the times) to help restart our economy which, after seven years of crisis, is as if it had come out of a war. The past experience of IRI and Eni, and the current one of the many companies controlled by local authorities, demonstrates that an expansion of the public purse no longer brings efficiency and therefore does not solve what is the real underlying problem of the Italian economy namely the excess of the public sector, the political and often demagogic management of economic problems, the rejection of market rules, competence, professionalism and merit.
It would be a serious mistake if Renzi, pressed by the urgency of obtaining visible results from the economic recovery especially in terms of higher employment, allowed himself to be dragged towards a neo-statism. It would be like wanting to cure the disease precisely with the pathogen that is at its origin.
