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Warren Buffett as soon as stated the very best enterprise is a toll sales space: you make a single funding, to construct a highway, then sit again and gather. It’s a maxim with which Giovanni Castellucci, chief government of the world’s largest motorway operator Atlantia, shall be warily acquainted.
For 17 years, Mr Castellucci was chief of Autostrade Per L’Italia, Atlantia’s subsidiary, which operates half of Italy’s motorways. However the toll highway enterprise shouldn’t be with out threat, as Mr Castellucci found on August 14 2018, when the Morandi motorway bridge in Genoa collapsed, leaving 43 folks lifeless.
Within the aftermath, Italy’s populist coalition blamed the corporate and referred to as for the nationalisation of the motorways. This week monetary police raided Autostrade’s workplaces after the Monetary Instances revealed the existence of an inner report into the corporate’s upkeep of the bridge. In a sprawling investigation, Mr Castellucci is considered one of greater than 70 suspects.
Below strain from the federal government and hopeful of a negotiated truce on the motorway concessions, Mr Castellucci, now chief of Atlantia, has positioned the group to decide to a daring endeavor: the rescue of troubled nationwide airline Alitalia, with an estimated funding of €300m. 4 rescue plans for Alitalia mounted prior to now 12 years have failed. However the calculated transfer may assist rehabilitate Atlantia’s picture in Italy and his personal.
The highlight on Mr Castellucci since Genoa can have been difficult. Associates say he loathes networking, and shuns Rome’s excessive society.
Mr Castellucci prefers to spend time together with his spouse Francesca, his childhood sweetheart, with whom he has two grownup youngsters. She serves as first mate, crew and prepare dinner on their frequent crusing journeys. He was a part of the Italian nationwide staff crusing dinghies as a scholar, and the game impressed his first firm on the age of 18: making and promoting sails from his mom’s front room.
Mr Castellucci, an engineering graduate, first impressed Atlantia’s dominant shareholder, the Benetton household, when he suggested them on their supermarkets enterprise. He made the soar from consultancy to boardroom, age 40, changing into chief of pastamaker Barilla, however left a yr later when the corporate cut up, and joined Autostrade.
Working 12 to 13 hour days at Atlantia’s Rome headquarters, typically with out stopping for lunch — remarkable in Italy — his life is all about tarmac, say colleagues. “He’s completely business-orientated and devoted to the corporate,” stated one enterprise affiliate. “He doesn’t do small discuss — it’s all work.”
His colleagues typically noticed him choosing up cigarette butts exterior Rome’s Fiumicino airport, which is owned by Atlantia. Relying on one’s view, he’s both tirelessly dedicated to the trigger or is a micromanaging obsessive.
The corporate’s takeover of Spanish rival Abertis in 2018, to turn into the most important motorway operator globally, was pushed by Mr Castellucci’s empire-building aspirations, say insiders. It got here 12 years after Abertis did not take over Atlantia, a supply of satisfaction for Mr Castellucci.
His powerful negotiating stance could have paid dividends for Atlantia. In line with colleagues, it was Mr Castellucci who negotiated a 2007 contract that might power the federal government to pay Autostrade €20bn if it revokes the concession. It supplied for motorway tariffs to rise on common 2 per cent yearly, with the licence stretching on till 2038.
Mr Castellucci was in his vegetable backyard in Tuscany on August 14 when a colleague phoned from Genoa. Within the days that adopted, he got here beneath hearth for the corporate’s sluggish response and perceived failure to take duty for the bridge catastrophe.
However Marco Bucci, the mayor of Genoa, says Mr Castellucci deserves extra credit score. “He arrived after solely about two hours. He was clearly affected by the seriousness of the accident. I don’t know whether or not Autostrade was at fault, however on that day we rolled up our sleeves and started working.”
Below Mr Castellucci, Autostrade has thrown thousands and thousands at reconstruction efforts. Mr Castellucci gave his 2018 bonus in the direction of scholarships for victims and their households.
As not too long ago as final month Luigi Di Maio, the Italian deputy prime minister, continued to rail towards Atlantia’s involvement within the Alitalia rescue, claiming “the planes would crash”, however he has now been pressured into an embarrassing U-turn.
As proprietor of Fiumicino airport, Alitalia’s hub, Atlantia has an curiosity in guaranteeing the airline’s survival. However saving the provider can also be an act of redemption, serving to to insulate Atlantia from additional political assault.
Mr Castellucci’s personal redemption might not be a part of the package deal. One supply near the federal government stated Autostrade may retain the concession if it fires some managers and lowers tariffs. The supply didn’t deny that Mr Castellucci was one of many desired scalps.
This yr Mr Castellucci will forgo his standard yachting vacation to jot down a brand new marketing strategy for Alitalia, in keeping with aides. He hopes to make it break even, a Herculean process, whereas retaining his personal place within the ranks. Neither is a simple process.
Extra reporting by Donato Paolo Mancini
