Giovanni Agnelli (1921-2003)

See also: Agnelli

Giovanni Agnelli (more known under the name of Gianni Agnelli , called Avvocato - born with Turin (Italy) the March 12th 1921 - deceased in Turin the January 24th 2003), was a large industrialist and contractor Italy N, joint owner and officer of the company FIAT.

Wire of Edoardo Agnelli (1892 - 1935), founder of the winter sports resort of Sestrières, and Virginia Bourbon LED Goes up (1899 - 1945), Gianni Agnelli was the grandson of the homonymous senator Giovanni Agnelli, of which he inherited in 1966 the management of the family firm after one period “regency” ensured by Vittorio Valletta. It is precisely Valletta, one of the last surviving founders, who trained the Gianni young person with the direction of a company as difficult as strategic, and which particularly initiated it with the relationship with the world Politique. Gianni Agnelli could make to FIAT more the Italian large company, and one of principal the manufacturers of cars in Europe; in parallel it developed also the other companies of the group, which included/understood companies present in the military and strategic sectors. Agnelli and FIAT were identified one with the other in the common direction, Agnelli wanted to say FIAT and, especially, FIAT wanted to say Agnelli.

During the Second world war it had followed a formation to the School of application of cavalry of Pignerol, in the surroundings of Turin, and had obtained a license in Droit to the university of the Piedmontese capital. He was enlisted in an envoy and tank regiment on the Russian face , then in North Africa, where he was wounded. After the armistice, it was used as liaison officer with the allied troops.

Agnelli opened factories FIAT in all the parts of the world, of the Russia (at the time still the Soviet Union) to the South America and wove a tight network of alliances and Coentreprise S like, for example IVECO) which marked a turning in industrial mentalities of the time. In the years 1970, during the Oil crisis, it yielded to the company Lafico, a company Libya related to the colonel Kadhafi, a share of 10% of the actions FIAT, which it repurchased many years later.

Its relationship with the Italian left wing, especially with NCV of Enrico Berlinguer, represented the gasoline of the relations of industry with the political clouts and particularly with the Syndicat S. The latter underwent a memorable defeat when, in the years 1980, a general strike which had completely blocked the production was broken by famous “the walk of Quarante-mille”, according to the number of workmen who, to a given moment, turned over in the factories and resumed work. This action marked a turning and the brutal loss of the capacity hitherto held by the trade unions in Italy, which never had again thereafter the same influence on the company and the national policy. It should be recalled that during the Années of lead one put forth the assumption that terrorists could infiltrate inside the trade unions, and following several assassinations of leaders and frameworks of FIAT (perpetrated by the red Brigades, PRIMA Linea, and NAP), penetrated the terrible suspicion which the trade unions could, to some extent, to have covered them.

Agnelli was named Senator with life in 1991, and it fitted in the “ Gruppo per Autonomy ” (Group for Autonomies); it took part in the Commission of the defense of the Sénat.

With the beginning of the year 2000, Agnelli opened the capital with the Americans of General Motors with which it establishes an agreement which envisaged the progressive entry of foreign assets in the group. The recent economic crisis of the activity Automobile of the group FIAT occurred whereas Agnelli fought already against the Cancer which was to carry it in January 2003, and it could take only one weak share with the events. (These cross agreements of participations became null and void at the end of 2004.)

The figure of Gianni Agnelli was also closely related to the history of the Juventus, the team of Football of Turin. Its daily phone calls at 6 o'clock in the morning addressed to the famous president Giampiero Boniperti, passed of any place where Agnelli was, and whatever the businesses who occupied it, remained legendary.

Also known by its nickname Avvocato (the lawyer), although it never practiced closely or by far this trade, Agnelli remains the most important character and most prestigious of the Italian economy, a symbol of the Capitalisme of second half of the 20th century, and it was regarded by certain as true “king d' Italie”. Cultivated man, equipped with a direction of the Humor sui generis , he was probably the most known Italian abroad, maintaining the relations followed with bankers and politicians to the international level (of which some, like Henry Kissinger, became his personal friends). He was also regarded as an elegant man. In 2002 it bequeathed to the town of Turin an immense inheritance of tables, placing its extraordinary Pinacothèque at the disposal of its fellow-citizens.

Its many detractors stress that, in all her activities, Agnelli would have mainly favoured the interests of her family, and its personal own interests, with the detriment of the collective interest, sometimes even with the detriment of the national interest. The firm FIAT, observes one, always was treated by the Italian government with a kind of institutional reverence, as if one had allotted a kind of legal and tax immunity to him. Agnelli, moreover, was also regarded as “the starver”, that which continued to grow rich while Italy impoverished itself. Agnelli never answered these charges. Italy became the sixth world power.

Its nephew, Giovanni Agnelli, known as “Giovannino”, wire of his Umberto brother, who had to take the head of FIAT, died brutally of a cancer striking down at the 33 years age in 1997. His/her Edoardo son, who lived a marginal existence, committed suicide the November 15th 2000. It is from now on its grandson, John Elkann says “Jaki”, first of the eight children of Margherita Agnelli, girl of the Avvocato , which is regarded as its more probable successor in the long term.

See too

Ifil
FIAT
Gianni Agnelli Tribute page

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