Just a few more days and it will be known whether Alberto Nagel, the dynamic CEO of Mediobanca, will succeed in marrying Fondiaria Sai, already so dear to Enrico Cuccia and Vincenzo Maranghi, with Unipol, the former goose that lays the golden eggs of the Coop . For now, what is known is that, however it turns out, nothing seems capable of arresting the decline of the man who for decades kept in his portfolio the keys to the most exclusive club of financial power (i.e. strategic stakes in Mediobanca, Rcs, Pirelli, Generali and others) and who for years has been able to act as a bridge between politics and business under the banner of business: Don Salvatore Ligresti.
It is no coincidence that Ligresti, in 1986, organized, with great discretion, the first meeting between Cuccia and the then Prime Minister Bettino Craxi. Now, that power is falling apart, pick after pick, even among the telematic enclosures of piazza Affari which expelled Fonsai from the basket of blue chips. First, Mediobanca's injunction to proceed with a robust capital increase of Fondiaria, so robust that it could not be tackled by Ligresti. Then the injunctions from Consob and Isvap, previously so distracted, now very vigilant and attentive. Finally, the epitaph-dismissal via Corriere della Sera on whose board of directors still sits his beloved daughter Jonella. The publication of a letter to the engineer of Vincenzo Maranghi, the banker who had delivered Fondiaria to the Sicilian builder.
"I am convinced that you will be aware that the management of the second largest Italian insurance group can no longer have a family approach but postulates a change of pace". Alas, that "change of pace" did not take place. And that letter, well known to Alberto Nagel and Renato Pagliaro, Maranghi's heirs, today assumes the value of posthumous dismissal. Yet a year ago it seemed that the engineer from Paternò had once again found a "white knight": Vincent Bolloré, the vice president of Generali, who had identified Jean Azéma, number one of the Groupama insurance group, as the ideal support for Fonsai. But the deal, in the end, was not due to the takeover bid imposed by Consob on Giuseppe Vegas (a good friend of the then Minister Giulio Tremonti). Ligresti, however, managed to replace Groupama with Unicredit, protagonist of a costly but useless rescue attempt.
It was the swan song for Ligresti, the master of relationship capitalism who within a few months lost the real point of reference of the system: Cesare Geronzi, ousted from the top of the Lion also thanks to the industrious silence of Giulio Tremonti. Meanwhile, the most precious ally on the other bank also jumped: Alessandro Profumo, the banker of reference that Ligresti himself, until a few months ago a director of Unicredit, had defended to the bitter end. Suddenly, therefore, Ligresti was discovered alone, moreover at the worst moment for those who own debts and bricks in industrial quantities. A chain of misfortunes, therefore, aggravated by careless family management. Just what Maranghi feared, already "betrayed" to Geronzi's advantage.
In fact, Fonsai's accounts are in full emergency: 952 million deficit in 2011 alone, including the discovery of a 660 million "hole" in the technical reserves to guarantee policyholders. Not to mention the write-downs of the equity and bond portfolio (350 million in all) or the write-down of goodwill (120 million) or properties (another 165 million). A real massacre that jeopardized the solvency index, which measures the ability of a company to meet the payment of claims and commitments towards policyholders. In the Fonsai house, in recent years, the rule of five has been applied: that is five million each salary for the three children of Don Salvatore, Jonella, Giulia and Paolo but also for CEO Fausto Marchionni, who came out in 2010 with the suffering group.
Nobody found anything to complain about, starting with the boards of auditors or the auditors, carefully chosen by the engineer or his friends (see Francesco Micheli in Premafin). And what about the experts who considered the price at which the family sold the Atahotels hotels to the company fair? Six months after the "deal" (25 million pocketed by the Ligresti) a write-down of 17 million was necessary plus another of 30 million the following year, when Atahotels recorded a loss of 52 million out of 110 in turnover. A gallery of distracted people, among which Isvap stands out which, after ten years of silence, carried out the first inspection on Fonsai in October 2010. The only truly innocent one is Toulon, the thoroughbred of the stable di Jonella, purchased in 2008 thanks to a Unicredit lease: 6,1 million for four purebred foals which, for the modest sum of 1,4 million a year, were sponsored by Fondiaria. Yet ISVAP has now asked for "clarifications" about him, a thoroughbred horse in the midst of so many crooks.
