Abstract
As from 1990, Cesare Romiti asked me to present Fiat’s data and strategy to the IFI shareholders during their annual Assembly at the end of November. By 1994, my presence, indispensable in the difficult years I described in the previous chapters, was no longer in tune with Romiti’s intention to “to take the Company in hand once more” and to present himself as the saviour of a crisis that had struck Fiat from goodness knows what external source. This state of affairs caused a curious episode that I described in my notes on 30 November 1994:
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Notes
- 1.
Ertico (the European Road Transport Telematics Implementation Co-Ordination Organisation) was an association for the development of electronics and informatics in the sphere of transport, in whose constitution a part was played by Umberto Agnelli and whose chief executive was, at that time, Filippi, my vice president at Iveco engineering.
- 2.
Translator’s note: Giovanni Nuvoletti was married to Clara, a sister of Gianni Agnelli.
- 3.
Translator’s note: Tiziana Nasi, a third generation descendant of the founder of Fiat, Giovanni Agnelli.
- 4.
Except for the role as head of Iveco, which in 1984 I had seen as a way to escape from the Direzione Centrale in corso Marconi in order to return to an operative industrial role.
- 5.
Translator’s note: an oblique reference to Alessandro Manzoni’s “L’Innominato”, a powerful character in his novel The Betrothed.
- 6.
Translator’s note: Giovanni Alberto Agnelli, of whom more will be said further on, was the son of Gianni Agnelli’s brother, Umberto, and his first wife Antonella Piaggio.
- 7.
The “Corriere della Sera” of 28 July 1995: “Fiat, Giovanni jr is the designated heir. The Avvocato: ‘He has the approval of all of us to prepare himself for major responsibilities in the group’”. “La Stampa”: ‘The Avvocato and Umberto confirm the investiture: yes, the heir is Giovanni junior’. “il manifesto” and “la Repubblica” came out with same headline: ‘Giovannino, all this will be yours’ (with a photo of robogate). Fiat’s manipulation of the press was aimed at giving the news maximum emphasis.
- 8.
The members of the Fiat Board were not informed about anything. On 31 July 1995 I visited Weiss, the representative of Deutsche Bank: “I meet Weiss at Salò and tell him what is going on, in a fabulous gazebo of his overlooking the lake, a place where the spirit of Gabriele D’Annunzio hovers, between a visit to the Vittoriale (D’Annunzio’s home) and dinner at the Rosa. The shareholders [who are part of the voting syndicate] know nothing about it, and they read about Giovannino in the papers. I told Weiss about my [terrible] relations with Romiti but he knew nothing about that either.
- 9.
Translator’s note: the young Agnelli had graduated from Stanford University, years before.
- 10.
Translator’s note: the young Agnelli was CEO of Piaggio, the producer of the Vespa motor scooter, owned by the mother’s side of his family.
- 11.
Translator’s note: John Lacklands (b. 1166) was the mocking nickname his father gave to King John of England, because it was thought he would never inherit substantial lands.
- 12.
The international press was ruthless. “The Economist” (9 September 1995), beneath the headline ‘Only in Italy’, spoke of “conjuring tricks”, “monstrosities”, “a disproportionate influence on the economy”, “chronic aversion to international involvement”, and “a great capital rolled up on itself”.
- 13.
Translator’s note: the electrical utility was nationalized in 1961, and the large sums paid to its previous shareholders were rapidly dispersed, without contributing to Italian business development.
- 14.
I learned later from Mattioli that this “supreme manager” of SuperGemina should have been Maurizio, Cesare Romiti’s eldest son.
- 15.
Translator’s note: the second daughter of Susanna, Giovanni Agnelli’s sister.
- 16.
Translator’s note: a reference to the questioning of senatore Agnelli about his fascist connections, after the war and shortly before his death in 1945.
- 17.
Many in those days thought that the haste derived from the new judicial questions concerning Romiti, namely the re-opening of the Intermetro case in Rome on 5 December 1995 for new testimony (see for example Radiocor for that day) and, above all, for the request for committal to trial, issued by the Turin public prosecutors Marcello Maddalena, Giangiacomo Sandrelli and Giancarlo Venati Bassi on 7 December. All the events of those days seemed the fruit of improvisation. On the other hand, for some time Gianni Agnelli had been asking me when my stint as chairman of ACEA would end, with the evident intention of proceeding with the operation of my dismissal (kicking out an incumbent chairman would have been rather anti-aesthetic). Strangely, the new nominations had been “guessed” since 8 April 1985 by “la Repubblica” and since 11 April 1995 by “MF”, which headlined “Cantarella Fiat CEO”; yet at that time Gianni Agnelli was telling me far different things. The journalists of “MF” (Rosario Dimiti and Laura Penitenti), who were not talking about me at all, cited “authoritative banking sources” for the news. Odd. But the same paper, in another article by Alessandro Rossi, in defining me as “A Romiti man but without enthusiasm, one who prefers to devote himself to work rather than the game of company politics” stated that I was “the man most in the public eye”.
- 18.
Anna M. Spinazzi was my assistant for my entire period with the Direzione Generale. For all that time she made a great contribution to the complex running of the office.
- 19.
Translator’s note: the highest Italian honour for services to industry, awarded by the President of the Republic on proposals made by previously nominated members.
- 20.
Translator’s note: a leading lawyer in Turin, he handled all Gianni Agnelli’s family affairs; at the time, he was secretary of the Fiat Board.
- 21.
Translator’s note: a notable former member of the Italian Communist Party, at this time he was general secretary of the Democratic Party of the Left (PDS).
- 22.
Francione was forced to leave immediately after my departure.
- 23.
Translator’s note: a concert hall in Turin, designed by the architect Renzo Piano, and dedicated to Giovanni Agnelli Sr.
- 24.
Andrea Pamparana: Cesare Romiti, Tullio Pironti, Naples 1997.
- 25.
Translator’s note: a large cement factory, controlled by Raul Gardini.
- 26.
The national manufacturing company was remunerated by the selling company on the basis of a predetermined price list, officially drawn up for tax purposes. In its turn the latter delivered the product to the dealers, so that any discounts granted them were recorded in the selling country, not in the manufacturing one.
- 27.
I was informed that Romiti immediately gave Paolo Cantarella and Giancarlo Boschetti a contract with an extremely high remuneration, with five years’ duration and devoid of any connection with company results. The practice was unusual for Fiat managers, the duration was extraordinary and, above all, by avoiding any form of incentive connected to results, it was a contravention of a policy that we had set up with great determination in Carlo De Benedetti’s day, a policy that Romiti himself had espoused and took every opportunity to boast about regarding the accomplishments achieved in the field of the entrepreneurial approach to management.
- 28.
Translator’s note: Fiat was established in 1899.
- 29.
The news had already been mentioned by Griffith in the “Financial Times” of 30 January 1996 with some essential elements. But the press office had managed to avoid the item being picked up in Italy and in any case the article lacked the depth that Alan Friedman gave to it.
- 30.
For example, in 1990 Ms. Bottenbruch said to the press: “Poor quality production [could] reveal itself to be the end of Fiat […]. If people buy a car, especially a luxury car, they don’t want to find screws all over the carpets. And they go crazy if the wing mirror falls off after three months and then the car breaks down on the road before it’s one year old”.
- 31.
“l’Unità” (Dario Venegoni) noted that “with Garuzzo, Fiat is depriving itself of one of the originators of its recovery, as happened several years ago with Vittorio Ghidella”. And further “Garuzzo, who joined Fiat several years ago with Carlo De Benedetti, whose personal assistant he was, has proudly emphasized his independence for years. He was not a ‘Ghidella man’ nor, certainly, a ‘Romiti man’. He was a champion of the Piedmontese school, of those ‘who work and that’s that’”. “l’Unità” continued by suggesting that matters had to do with my testimony before Sandrelli (“scant solidarity towards the number one before the judges […] is a grave sin in Turin”). The “Corriere della Sera” devoted a five-column article to me (‘And the reserved Piedmontese spoke in English’), even sweeter: “Garuzzo, the unassuming Garuzzo, has had recourse to a most subtle and mordant response to the breakdown of a fiduciary relationship”. Raffaella Polato put it just like that. And the capacity for introspection of this journalist, who I never met, is remarkable. “It is anything but Piedmontese to have chosen the press in order to give his reasons free play openly. All the more so if the press is not the Italian press – which a month ago had already let slip a first sign of the disagreements reported by the “Financial Times” – but an international daily such as the ‘Herald Tribune’”. And further: “The slap in the face dealt by that interview-accusation of Romiti will not earn him the approval of the establishment”. It was absolutely true and it was something I had taken into account. The Turin daily “La Stampa”, in an article signed by f.man., was most cautious. It published my photo, something that hadn’t happened for months after the abundance of the good years, and it stated that Friedman had attributed me (in a “ridiculous” fashion) with the credit for the success of the Fiat Punto and the Fiat Bravo and Brava “unquestionably Cantarella’s creations”. But Alan Friedman had absolutely not written or said anything of the sort.
- 32.
I relate this in its entirety in Document 12 in Chap. 14.
- 33.
All in all, apart from the severance agreement and the back pay, the contract stipulated: the payment of 30 monthly salaries; the annuity of 555 million lire net per annum, provided I did not work in any way for 5 years in the prohibited countries (all the most important ones in the world) in all automotive fields; the chairmanship of Teksid for 5 years, with an annual retribution of (around) 200 million net; plus an additional one-off payment of 3 billion lire.
- 34.
AGI news of 29 February 1996, at 14.58 h. Radiocor (15.00 h) expunged the reference to me. ADN Kronos (16.09) observed that “with his customary punctuality, Gianni Agnelli, entered the offices in corso Marconi. No change, therefore, in his life on this first day as “honorary chairman”.
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Garuzzo, G. (2014). The Days of the Final Confrontation (1995–1996). In: Fiat. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-04783-6_12
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