Word: merzagora
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Nobody expected miracles when Cesare Merzagora, an accomplished businessman and former leader of Italy's Senate, took over six months ago as president of Montecatini-Edison, the country's largest industrial firm. The Milan headquarters of the overdiversified chemical colossus was torn at the top by a management divided into two hostile camps-representatives of the government's substantial interest and champions of private investors (including the Agnelli and Pirelli families)-which held equal stakes. Directors had hoped that the appointment of Merzagora, 71, would keep both factions in balance and allay fears that the state...
Last week, after a five-hour meeting attended by many of the most powerful men in Italian business and state agencies, Merzagora stalked out and resigned. The state, he complained, was seeking domination of the firm. The news sent ripples of concern through Western Europe's business community. Amid rumors of a drastic organizational shakeup, the company's stock scraped a new low. Investors remembered that Giorgio Valerio, a bitter foe of state encroachment, was ousted as president last April by his rivals in the government...
...industry welded into a cartel strong enough to thwart foreign competitors. The government's men have proved to be far more dynamic and adept at grabbing power than the representatives of private shareholders. Now the state's executives are likely to move into the vacuum created by Merzagora's departure. In Italy, the government already has monopoly control over electric power, telephones, railroads, radio and television. The state also has big interests in shipping, steel, airlines and oil. After last week's flare-up, it seems quite possible that the Continent's biggest chemical concern...
...private sector, a group of businessmen led by Cesare Merzagora, former president of the Italian Senate and now head of Assicurazioni Generali, the country's largest insurance firm, challenged Bastogi, a big holding company in which Assicurazioni owns a major interest. Decrying Italian financial companies as "a group of hens nesting on rocks," Merzagora's group demanded that Bastogi try to stimulate private investment rather than keep its capital in the serenity of real estate holdings. Another group, headed by Insurance Executive Ettore Lolli, joined with Tiremaker Leopoldo Pirelli to oust the conservative management of La Centrale...
Ordinary Italians, painfully aware that their politicians are too absorbed in influence peddling and office seeking to devote much attention to the nation's grave social and economic problems, mostly applauded Merzagora. But Italy's political bosses, leftists and rightists alike, chorused righteously that Merzagora was "discrediting democratic institutions." After the secretary of the Christian Democratic Party complained that the corruption charge might even be "twisted" to apply to Christian Democrats, Merzagora resigned as Senate president. After that, President Gronchi and the party bosses settled down to the agreeable political dickering that, in time, will presumably produce another...