Between Cremona and Mantua there are just under 60 kilometers but it takes almost two hours to travel along the old provincial road during peak hours. Thus, Cremona has always been on the Brescia-Piacenza-Turin motorway and Mantua on the Brennero-Verona-Modena axis. Far and yet close, the two Lombard cities also mark the distance between their two steel "champions" competing for the auction of theIlva of Taranto. On one side John Arvedi allied with Del Vecchio e CDP to the Indian giant Jindal Steel; on the other the heirs of Steno Marcegaglia roped with the Anglo-French-Indian giant Mittal Acelor.
John Arvedi the challenge is almost a second youth that is measured by the steel of its innovative plant on the Po river port, by the life of the local newspaper and TV, by the patronage it has reserved for years for the City of Cremona of which, after the disappearance of Negroni, has the scepter not only entrepreneurial. His beautiful house behind the apse of the Cathedral, a stone's throw from the legendary butcher Saronni, has hosted many figures from the economy and finance ever since he entered the Corriere della Sera rescue with "personal" money.
Even in the most difficult moments of his "technological innovation", the one that brought the Group's shares into the hands of Mediobanca, Usinor and the Lucchinis, Giovanni Arvedi did not "close his house" like many others but, with pride and sacrifice of a large part of family heritage, he firmly took his own history as a steel entrepreneur back into his hands. Today, on the threshold of 80 years, he presents himself as the head of a private steel industry who courageously bets on the future.
After Mantua, in Gazoldo degli Ippoliti, land of "scariolanti" and poor peasants, the empire of the Marcegaglia. Steno, the founder, came from nowhere, who traveled the flat roads of the countryside in the first post-war years in defense of the peasants. The reconstruction opened the way for him to undertake first with a little trade, then with U-shaped iron as a guide for the shutters that depopulated in the houses as a sign of modernity and then with welded pipes.
Lord of Gazoldo, known in half of Europe, capable of billionaire deals and as many risks, Steno Marcegaglia never became the Duke of Mantua because in the enterprise that title has always belonged first to the Belleli and then to Roberto Colannino, younger, more dynamic and cold, who held the meetings of the Sogefi Group in the great hall of the horses at Palazzo Te. After the death of Steno Marcegaglia, the Group is entirely in the hands of his children Antonio and Emma. The budgets are no longer what they used to be, but the political and trade union relations that have always been cultivated in the family do not appear to be affected or exhausted.
The Arvedis too had started welding pipes. Both of them, having installed very modern plants, were able to productively and fiscally exploit the competitive advantages resulting from their productivity and quality compared to the low and wasteful ones of public companies and Falck. While Arvedi transformed over the years from a user to a producer of steel, Steno Marcegaglia did not compete with steel but became one of the most important consumers in Europe. When he faces the noise of the ovens he does it, as in Falck or in Magona d'Italia, as a shareholder or in alliance with the public Ilva.
In the next week the two champions of the Po will compete with the economic offers of the respective sides after the plant and environmental approach has already given the different dimension of the two proposed strategies. Fundamental will be the cash capitalization of the company and not as the result of contributions of other nature. It will be the fresh money that the company will have available for the relaunch that will make the difference as well as the ability to return the sums entered into Ilva to the Italians to save its existence and guarantee its continuity after Riva.
Meanwhile, the memorandum (which we enclose) summarizing the two competing offers is circulating in the Industry Commissions of the Chamber and the Senate. We have also seen it delivered to the upper floors of the Ministries and to some restricted editorial offices. The lobbies are at work. This note summarizes the technical offers and strategic lines of the two consortiums competing for ILVA in Taranto. Many of the choices have long been anticipated by FIRSTonline and which today find confirmation in the concise and clear document. The pace of the economic offer, which slips by a few weeks with respect to the date announced for February 8, therefore appears to be decisive.
Attachments: The sheet of the two competing offers for Taranto
