Telecom Italia’s chairman, Guido Rossi, resigned last week after a prolonged falling out with Pirelli chairman Marco Tronchetti Provera. The latter holds an 18 per cent stake in the telecom giant through the holding company Olimpia. His resignation came in the wake of Pirelli chief trying to sell a major chunk of Olimpia to US telecom giant AT&T and its Mexican affiliate. Rossi is not included on Pirelli & C SpA unit Olimpia’s list of proposed directors at the upcoming annual shareholder meeting. Company’s vice chairman Carlo Buora will take up his position.
I was especially amused by what Rossi had to say after the weekend boardroom putsch.
Rossi:
I’ve been through six months of hell. I’ve abandoned all illusions that Telecom Italia can be saved, any more than Italian football can be cleaned up.
I have seen some dramatic moments for the Italian economy in my life, but this affair really is the pits. Do foreigners realise what they are getting into with this country?
Rossi a former head of Italy’s financial authority, Consob, and a revered figure, had a fallout with Provera over the exclusive talks he entered into with AT&T and America Movil about each of these two taking a third of Pirelli’s 80 per cent in Olimpia. In La Repubblica on Friday, Rossi even said Pirelli chairman Marco Tronchetti Provera had asked him to take over as chairman last September only because Tronchetti wanted Rossi to get him out of a mess. Tronchetti, then also chairman of Telecom Italia, had rowed with the government over alliances and selling parts of the firm. The two men were headed for a possible altercation when Rossi tried to ‘clear up the conflicts of interest between Tronchetti and Telecom Italia.’
The mistrust between the two has apparently led to Rossi’s exit. This has made the future negotiations for the sale very interesting indeed, as Italian banks are buying Telecom Italia stakes in the market to block any foreign takeover.
source: Forbes
