People on the Move
Marco Boglione and Adriano Moraglio
Slowly please, I’m in a hurry
Entrepreneur is cool!
Basic Edizioni
All rights reserved
© 2009 Marco Boglione and Adriano Moraglio, Torino
Original title «Piano piano che ho fretta»
Printed in Torino, Italy
Release 1.1.1
English translation by Daniel Monti
isbn 978-88-905499-1-5
To our children
FOREWORD
A corrispondence
A friendship
Marco and I have known each other for some time. I started to take an
interest in him as a journalist when he was filling institutional posts,
to be precise from the time he became president of Film Commission
and later took up the same post for itp (Investment in Turin and Piedmont), the Agency devoted at the time to attracting foreign investors to
Piedmont. When I met him I liked him immediately. Moreover it was
clear that he had decided to offer his experience as an entrepreneur to
a public body for a set period without seeking any profit whatsoever,
profit being the purpose of any entrepreneurial venture.
In spring 2008 I fancied a chat with him again so I set up a
meeting. I did not have to interview him for my newspaper or gather
information on his group, BasicNet, owner of the famous Kappa,
Robe di Kappa, Jesus Jeans, Superga, K-Way brands. The last time
I had seen him it had been at a jazz evening I had organized: he
attended with his “wife” Stella (I’ll explain the meaning of the inverted commas later). I told him I loved pizza and he invited me to
that extraordinary pizzeria known as Fratelli La Cozza, behind
BasicNet’s headquarters in Torino, under the very roof that saw the
dawn of local industrial activity in 1916, when Abramo Vitale – a
second name that will play a fundamental part in Marco Boglione’s
existence – established Società Anonima Calzificio Torinese.
We sat at a table on the balcony in the pizzeria’s huge open space,
dined and talked at length.
7
slowly please, i’m in a hurry
After a time I felt the need to resume that conversation. No need to
say that we did so in front of a pizza at Fratelli La Cozza’s. It was
there that Marco told me that at the next board meeting he would put
forward an unusual proposition that I thought was extraordinary.
He said things were going well and that to mark BasicNet’s 25 years
in business, although it started as Football Sport Merchandise, he
would have liked to give all the group’s employees a bonus, a month’s
extra pay and added he would put forward approximately one million
euros. After careful evaluation of the significance of that decision I
realized the man facing me had a completely new, or rather quite revolutionary concept of his activity as an entrepreneur. He said: «We
went through difficult years, also as far as the mood went, everyone
grinned and bore it and nobody complained; now things are going
much better and it looks like the worst is over; the top management
and shareholders are a lot more comfortable. It would be a real shame
if BasicNet was a company where when it is time to cry everyone cries
and when it is time to laugh only a few do so».
As we dined I pitched the idea of writing his story. He did not say
yes but said he liked me and that he would consider it. So here I am
now, waiting for him in his boardroom, a strange but elegant room,
with microphones screwed into the ceiling instead of resting on the
table top. Resting on other tables along the walls are picture books,
bottles of mineral water, military statues from China, three-colour
Superga plimsolls (from toddler to adult sizes). On a wall there are
three huge photographs: the beautiful woman’s bottom in denim hot
pants that caused a scandal in the 70s making the Jesus Jeans brand
famous; Moreno Torricelli wearing a tracksuit sporting the Kappa
logo; between these two the third shows a man and a woman locked in
a sensual embrace, an image from a 70s Kappa campaign.
The room opens on the inner yard of the BasicNet village with its
outlet, gigaStore, supermarket, a bar with its walls covered in old
photographs of Maglificio Calzificio Torinese’s factory, a Superga
outlet, a Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena branch, a laundrette,
a travel agent’s, a multistore car park and, of course, Fratelli La
Cozza’s pizzeria. The yard also leads to the main entrance to this
8
a friendship
mini mall with an old sentry box on corso Regio Parco. I wait: I
entered the building from the main entrance on a square named after
Boglione’s great master Maurizio Vitale.
Marco opens the door from his office and after greeting me with
his usual warmth he sits at the table and starts telling me about
himself.
This happened repeatedly over a period of time. I wrote down pages
and pages taking notes, mostly without talking, putting everything
together later but keeping faithful to what I had heard. That’s what
a reporter does: the chosen character should do the talking, not the
reporter…
Marco later went over the story, adding to it, correcting and rewriting it with the precious help of his irreplaceable secretary Roberta.
Finally I went over the story again, including my own words. So here
is the result of our meetings and of all this work. With friendship.
9
PART I
What we care about
The trail
When I was a child for a while I dreamed about becoming
the President of the u.s. I was five or six years old and was
besotted by John Fitzgerald Kennedy and all his family. I
told myself: «That’s what I’ll do when I grow up». But when
I was around ten I heard on the news that Henry Kissinger
(who was at the time National Security Advisor and among
the most powerful politicians in the world) would never
be President of the usa because he had been born in Germany. Thus, I realized I had to abandon my plan: there was
nothing for it, not a chance in the world. I immediately
changed aspiration and went for Formula 1 pilot, but had
to abandon this project too. In those days pilots were often
victims of fatal accidents and it was exactly at that time
that I lost two of my heroes – Jim Clark and Lorenzo Bandini –, but that was not the reason why I had to give up.
The fact is I soon realized you could be successful only if
you had a sponsor or your family was already in the trade.
That was not my case, but for a long time I continued in
secret to pretend I was a Formula 1 pilot, especially when
driving.
Soon I came to think I could become an entrepreneur.
But the idea came and went. My family was sympathetic towards my projects; but obviously I was not taken seriously.
11
slowly please, i’m in a hurry
For a while I focused on another great passion of mine
exciting my imagination, photography; at the same time I
was busy getting through my education, and not without
problems, thanks to my creativity and lust for life, to the
point that half way through college I asked to be put into
boarding school.
At the Istituto Filippin in Paderno del Grappa, far from
home, I met one of those good teachers who make a difference in life. The suggestion, clear cut and without appeal was: «Do your duty here so you may in later life do all
the things you believe in». But this is a tale that deserves
to be told properly.
In the meantime I have to say that at one stage, after college, I was about to give up. That’s right, Adriano, I almost
did. That is, I was about to ignore my dreams. I followed
my family’s advice and enrolled in University to study the
subject which least reflected my aptitude and expectations:
Engineering. So I would never be a photographer nor a
doctor, my latest ruse to avoid studying to be a naval engineer, my father’s ambition. Luckily I soon managed to escape that daunting nightmare that drove me to feeling I was
no use to anyone, including myself, a state of mind I hate.
That was maybe the saddest year and a half of my life.
Fortunately it was then that I met Maurizio Vitale. From
that moment on I would live ten extraordinary years, full of
enthusiasm, passion and cheer in the company the a marvellous person and entrepreneur like Maurizio was.
Now, after ups and downs, like the captain of a ship
stopping in a harbour just long enough for maintenance
and supplies, sailing from one shore to the next, here I
am. Maybe just half way through my first trip around the
world. Hoping and wishing I may travel many more miles,
my spirit inside me urging me to get out there and travel
more, facing further uncertainty. With a statistically high
chance of being, in the end, swallowed by the waves, sud-
12
the trail
denly losing everything I have earned in my first fifty years
and that, like many people keep reminding me, I have every right of enjoying by taking less risks.
I want to understand what has happened up to now. And
while I try to understand it I’m going to tell you about it
too, Adriano. Why do I not want to keep safe in the harbour? Why have I travelled all those miles? Why do I want
to carry on challenging myself risking an injury when my
needs are few and I have enough money to satisfy them?
Because as a child I wanted to be a good boy. I wanted
to grow up, respected and satisfied, I wanted a family, I
wanted to be useful and carry out this extraordinary experience we call life with honour. Because nothing is worse
than realizing you did something poorly and being unable
to go back. Because I want to avoid at all costs having to
say to myself «I’m sorry». This was the drive behind my
decisions and my attitude. And I believe that in the end all
boys want what I have lived up to now. All children dream
of being good boys. That is, good men.
13
To the young
Dear Adriano, before I get down to the business of telling
the story of my life I have to explain why I have decided
to satisfy your curiosity. What my intentions are. What I
want is to make the young want to become entrepreneurs.
Let it be clear from the start: I have no intention of being self-referential. I do not wish to celebrate anniversaries
or successes: I just want to try to convince my readers
that my job is amazing. For some time now I have felt
the growing need to dispute the platitudes used to present
entrepreneurs through a kaleidoscope of political, moral
and media-related interests of every kind. The end result
is that from childhood the majority of our youth dreams
of becoming football players or models and very few, too
few, dream of opening companies, making them grow and
becoming leaders in the world of business. And I believe
that all this has catastrophic consequences for the economy and the social progress of our country.
I have been told many times that I am a “different” entrepreneur and this is one of the few things I find a little
irritating. I think entrepreneurs as such are all the same:
they are all people pursuing a dream or, in what appears
to be a completely irresponsible fashion, face incredible
risks with the enthusiasm of children dreaming they will
14
slowly please, i’m in a hurry
one day play for a great football team, win a golden football and the Champions League. Sadly in our neck of the
woods entrepreneurs are not seen through these eyes at
the moment. Rather, if you ask people what they think of
the “category”, the result is disheartening. Entrepreneurs
are seen as people living off their position, who would do
anything for money, and exploit others. And if that was
not enough they are always dreary and only think about
their own interest. Incredible…
Yet that is what the vast majority thinks and, as I was
saying, this profession is virtually absent from the list of
ambitions of the young although it should be at the top,
also in the interest of all western societies.
Undoubtedly this is a problem concerning everyone:
schools, churches, political parties, the media, but above
all, families. Children start to dream at home, when they
are very small, and that’s where a process should occur that
is the exact opposite of what is happening in most cases
today: their imagination should be supported, their natural
inclination towards dreaming of a successful life should
be encouraged, obviously highlighting the risks that have
to be faced to achieve it. The entrepreneur should be included among the noble and deserving prospects children
are made to consider.
I was lucky because that is exactly what happened to me
and in this respect I consider myself to have been privileged. Of course to become what I am I had to work hard
and luck also played a part, but getting here has not been
a stroll in the park. If I had grown up in the same social,
school, and family environment of many of my friends –
dreaming of a job for life, avoiding being exploited, never
taking any risks, and exposed to temptation by alternative
social models to the free market economy and capitalism
– I would have probably never even tried to become an
entrepreneur.
15
to the young
So this is what I am most interested in: convincing the
young that dreams can also become true. Having stated that,
let’s immediately deal with an alibi I often hear among the
young and the not so young: «It is better not to dream to
avoid risking the bitter disappointment of failure». Such
an unnatural and absurd alibi may even drive people to
apathy. Of course, I do understand: thinking that dreams
can become true means accepting the risk that they might
not, because embarking on a venture – whether it be in
life or in business – always implies a multiplicity of factors some of which do not depend from us. What is more,
when someone tries to do something no one else has done
before, more often than not a chorus of voices starts
warning him that his idea is wrong and it will not lead him
anywhere. And because you are not an alien or a madman
you listen to advice but still want to act. I have been in this
situation quite often. Many times I wondered what to do
when it was not my own intelligence telling me that what I
wanted to do might not happen.
16
The risk of endeavour
The main problem lies on the majority of people who
thinks of undertaking a venture only when they see great
probabilities of success. On the other hand, I have always
done things which at first, at least according to others,
had very little chance of getting anywhere. But if this
is the starting point, because the risk factor is high, it is
necessary to act with maximum motivation and energy. So
this much is obvious: under these conditions the onset is
always rather dubious.
Uncertainty derives from the fact that you start off and
you are almost sure you will not get any results. But let it
be crystal clear: almost sure. If I think about it this is the
point of view from which I approached reality in my life
as an entrepreneur. This is my experience: to act differently would mean to exclude from a business venture that
element of destiny which is independent of you and that,
on the contrary, really must be considered as added value.
As an example: if someone buys a lottery ticket, why does
he do it? Because he thinks he has at least a possibility in a
billion of winning. He knows that he will almost certainly
lose, but he cannot exclude a priori that the dream of winning could come true. It is at this level that the mechanism
we call discerning capacity comes into play: discerning be-
17
slowly please, i’m in a hurry
tween battles that can be won, even if there are very few
possibilities, and battles that will surely end in defeat. The
moment you are evaluating this issue is the moment when
you are alone. But if you get used to doing things for their
own sake, because you believe they can become a reality,
that is good, you are on the right track. It is a bit like challenging fate by provoking it and almost playing against it.
There is a statement the writer Marguerite Yourcenar, in
her Memoirs of Hadrian, ascribes to the great Roman emperor who was also a philosopher: «I wanted to find the
joint where our will is coupled to destiny». That is it, I can
fully identify with that.
Some will say I talk like this because things went well.
They will think about BasicNet’s great and small achievements and of its brands (Kappa, Robe di Kappa, Jesus
Jeans, K-Way, Superga); to past successes on the Stock
Exchange; to the conversion of an old factory covering
20.000 square meters – that everyone wanted to knock
down to build apartments – and that instead has been
made into a poly-functional, modern, fun and profitable
Village. They will think of the wealth and harmony in
my family. But trust me Adriano, every entrepreneur can
vouch for the fact that some days everything is hunky dory
and other days are simply a disaster. There are moments
when you are almost overwhelmed by setbacks, when certainties are shaken, when you seriously start thinking how
to save your “passengers”, while reason is telling you that
just one more wave will sink the ship. This has happened
to me many times: you can also tell the situation is critical
by the faces of those you pass in a corridor, looking at you
like you’re a dead man walking.
This is when the world falls into three categories. Those
that shaking their heads pretend to be sad but let you understand that they had warned you («I did tell you…»).
Those who are sincerely sorry, do not really understand
18
the risk of endeavour
what is happening to you but still try to cheer you up; how
lovely! And finally those who know you well, love you and
really encourage you, reminding you that since you believed
in everything you did, failure will not be that much of a
tragedy. Like it is, deep down, for a loyal and brave soldier
who does not make it back from the frontlines. I received a
great teaching along these lines when I was seventeen and
my grandfather on my mother’s side died; my mother read
us the different wills he had written during his life. He had
fought in both world wars (as a volunteer in ww2 as he had
been seriously wounded in ww1). My mother was born in
1927 so when he was at the front she was an adolescent.
I was especially struck by a passage dedicated to his only
daughter: «If I don’t return do not cry for me. I am happy
because I died for something I believed in with all my heart,
exactly like I love you. Italy». As if to say: a ship is safe in a
harbour but that is not what it was built for.
What then? Then we have to do things with all the drive
and will possible, even if reason tells us that particular enterprise will succeed only thanks to an extraordinary stroke
of luck. The fact remains, that one must always act as if
the objective has to be achieved at all costs. This is a virtue you cannot buy and that cannot be achieved through
study. It is something innate you have inside but that can
be much improved by observing others.
I am more and more convinced that the best teachers
are those you learn from without them ever teaching you
anything. In this sense I have had some extraordinary
ones in my life. I will list them immediately: my nanny,
«la signorina»; my mother; Brother Roberto Sitia; later my
friend Maurizio Vitale and Gianluigi Gabetti. These are
the people from whom I have learned what I have stated
up to now: knowing how to do things in ways different to
what is the common understanding; the value of reasoning autonomously.
19
slowly please, i’m in a hurry
Until something stays inside the mind that grasped or
conceived it, it will just remain pure fantasy and as time
goes by it will slowly turn into what is commonly known as
«mental masturbation». But if it takes on form, then…
20
PART II
Where an entrepreneur is born
The origins
I was born on 9 May 1956, the third of three sons in a
bourgeois, upper middle-class family from Torino. I soon
felt the consequences of the economic boom of the 60s.
And I also vividly remember the end of that decade, when
things started getting complicated.
I had the luck of living in a perfect family, and I say
that without any fear of exaggerating. It was perfect in the
sense that it was that much different from the stereotypes
of the time thanks, above all, to my mother’s character
and personality. If I now think of our mother (I say this
because it was the same for my brothers, respectively four
and eight years older than me), I have to acknowledge that
she was the link between that world and the future; this
made a difference to the education we received, and this
in turn was crucial in a context which, for obvious reasons,
was prone to conservatism.
To be more precise, our family was not at all unconventional, but our mother’s character, personality and experience gave us that extra push and in the end all three of us
brothers ended up doing the same job, the entrepreneur,
although in different fields, with a very different approach,
but with similar results. And that is because our starting
point was the same, that jolt of adrenaline our mother
22
slowly please, i’m in a hurry
knew how to convey telling us we had to make a position
for ourselves, rely on ourselves, never waste time crying
over things gone wrong, see life as a climb towards something beautiful, serious, to be undertaken with care and
not to be taken superficially. It is by no chance that my
first years were rather difficult. I discovered I was dyslexic
very late.
That is right, Adriano, reading is for me an excruciating
chore. I can make an amazing number of spelling mistakes
no matter how many times I check what I have just written. In school essays were my worst nightmare; however
great my reasoning was, it was studded with trivial spelling mistakes, inverted or substituted letters, the «h» after
the «a» instead of before and so on. I have no problem
admitting that in my work I have been saved by automatic
spellcheck functions.
In those days the school system gave zero attention to
that kind of problem. Children suffering from this disorder ended up being classed as “bad” because they were not
very good in school, they were restless, and they inverted
letters when reading. The Brothers of the Istituto San
Giuseppe in Torino suggested I retired from my first year
in primary school and so it was. I could have failed and I
might as well be spared the humiliation. I was saved by
a marvellous suburban state school a few hundred yards
from where we lived. My teacher taught a class with pupils
of different ages; two of them were her own children and
it even happened that there were just five of us.
I spent five wonderful years in this new school. The
schoolmate I was closest to was called Walter and we are
still friends today.
At the time the other most important person in my life
was my grandfather on my mother’s side. I loved spending
time with him: he was a passionate model maker and his
standards stemmed from the workshop and the mountains.
23
the origins
For everything else he patiently let himself be managed
by his wife and daughter. He was a model train enthusiast and he could fix anything. His gifts for Christmas and
birthdays consisted in drills, electric saws and toolboxes. I
still have and use many of those tools. Among the people
close to me in those years I also remember my nanny, a
girl from Tremoli. After the war she had been sent to a
convent for financial reasons, but since she did not have
the calling she left to work as a nanny. She kept telling me
that when I grew up I would be made Pope because I was
beautiful and bright. But the prospect did not enthuse me
at all because I already knew then that priests are not allowed to marry, so I told myself that it was much better to
be the President of the u.s.
There were also my two grandmothers, very much present and immensely different one from the other. Unfortunately my mother was sick; she had been diagnosed with a
cancer she did not have and had undergone surgery. The
operation went horribly wrong and the doctors – unbelievably – hoped she would die so her death could be put down
to her illness and not to a terrible story of malpractice that
would deserve its own book written about it. The prospect
of losing her made my father desperate and pushed him to
a very brave but risky course of action, which was unusual
for him. Against the advice of all the top medical brass
in Torino, all siding with the doctor responsible for that
disaster, he had my mother transferred to Genoa under
his own responsibility, after she was given just a few hours
to live. Here Edmondo Malan, a great man, a gentleman,
and a world-famous cardiovascular surgeon who had no
ties with the medical establishment in Torino, successfully
attempted a very complex operation to repair the havoc
carried out on my mother by cutting through her femoral
artery and femoral nerve during a mundane, and moreover
needless, operation to remove her uterus.
24
slowly please, i’m in a hurry
Mother returned home after a few months, but despite
her grit it took her years to be able to lead an almost normal life. This is the first time of my life I can recall clearly. Many episodes come back to mind with extreme ease:
my days in school, time spent with my grandparents, long
chats with my nanny, talking while pretending we were
grown-ups with my friend Walter. I am always surprised
how lucid and focused my memories are starting from the
time of my mother’s sickness.
There are two particular snapshots of my early childhood
which have stuck in my mind. The first has to be the first
milestone of my conscious memory because it all starts
there. I was very little, just under two years old, I believe. It
was springtime. We lived in San Vito, Torino, in a beautiful
villa Mum and Dad had built in the year I was born.
The house stood on a plot of land owned by my mother’s family, and she had quite a few cousins. Some lived
inside old Villa Nina, an 18th century building bought by
my mother’s grandfather in the early 1900s, thus named in
honour of his wife. Others had built houses on the villa’s
grounds. So we lived in a sort of community with cousins
of all ages.
At the time I was the youngest. Well, one day, as was
customary, it was decided to take a group walk to the fountain. There were many council fountains providing excellent service to the hills – elegant cast iron pillars painted
green with a bull’s head at the top, horns and all, constantly
spouting fresh water from its mouth. I was in a pram held
by Francesco, my older brother who was about ten, under
the vigilant gaze of «la signorina».
The road was downhill and I can clearly picture many
happy children all talking at the same time. When we were
approaching the fountain Francesco as a prank let go of
the pram and obviously it accelerated. I experienced a
sense of void before someone stopped it. Those few mo-
25
the origins
ments of terror are impressed in my memory and are the
first conscious moment of my presence on Earth. Luckily
the horror of those moments soon vanished thanks to the
children’s delighted squeals and the sound of our nanny’s
voice telling Francesco off.
26
A tantrum, a fish, and my first contract
The other snapshot of my childhood engraved into my
memory is from the time of my mother’s sickness. She was
convinced she would not survive for long and maybe because of this she became very present and indulgent with
me. In April 1962 we spent two weeks together at the Eden
boarding house in Alassio. She was going to undergo her
operation on our return so she wanted to spend some time
alone with me, fearing that with me being so little I might
not remember anything about her if things did not go well.
One day I asked her to take me fishing at the harbour. She
immediately bought me a fishing rod and since the same
shop sold small cameras she also bought me one of those.
We went to the harbour where she managed to convince
a sailor to help her take the back seat out of her fiat 600
and soon enough the “young master” was comfortably
seated on the quay waiting for the fish that naturally never
came. At the end of the morning I firmly refused to give
up. I wanted a photograph with a catch and it also had to
be taken with my new camera. On that occasion my capricious behaviour knew no limits and it only ended after
we bought a nice fish at the fishmongers and took a snap
of it hanging from my fishing rod with my new camera.
For years I was tormented by guilt for my behaviour but
27
slowly please, i’m in a hurry
I’ll never forget the feeling of satisfaction still quite clear
from the smile on my face in the photograph.
In spring 1966, during my fourth year in Primary School,
something occurred which is relevant to my story: my first
entrepreneurial whimper. One Sunday afternoon while I
was playing in the street with my friend Walter and some
other kids I did something quite foolish which could have
cost me dearly. While improperly handling a not very toylike blank-firing hand gun – in those days the issue of toy
safety had hardly been raised – I fired a shot and the resulting flare ended up straight into my eyes causing severe
injury. It was a serious accident and I had to spend a month
at the Ophthalmic Hospital – two weeks completely blindfolded – and undergo three or four operations to remove
all traces of gun powder. To help me pass all the time I
had to spend in the dark, Mimma, that is how we called
Grandma Angelica, Mum‘s mother, taught me crochet. In
very little time I learned chain stitch and started making
hot pads and selling them to the relatives and friends who
came to see me. The price was 500 lire each. In the end
I was making a dozen a day. In those days 5 or 6.000 lire
a day was a fortune, and not only for a child; a fiat 500
cost 500.000 lire and in a month I almost made 150.000!
There were so many of those hot pads that some can still
be found in family homes. Working helped me a lot and
maybe that was when I got a taste for it.
After Primary School I tried my academic fortune once
more enrolling for High School at Istituto San Giuseppe.
It was then that I became aware of a problem I had not,
up to then, considered as such, rather it had been for me a
kind of privilege. I knew I suffered from congenital heart
murmur but I was very proud about it because everyone
talked about it, and it also dispensed me from carrying out
any kind of chore for my parents involving going up and
down the stairs because I could not tire myself out. My
28
a tantrum, a fish, and my first contract
brothers were rather less thrilled because, lacking an alibi,
they had to cover for me too, despite themselves. I could
not afford getting as tired as my peers either (this included
games), a restriction compensated by other advantages
such as receiving a moped very early instead of a bicycle.
Since we lived in the hills my mother was terrified at the
thought I might ride a bike uphill and push my body beyond the limits it could, in theory, endure. Realistically it
was very difficult to observe absolute bans: it was virtually
impossible not to follow my friends on my bicycle. Some
kind of extra motivation was needed so one evening Mum
played her last card: «If you promise not to ride a bicycle
anymore I’ll buy you a moped in spring». The offer was so
tempting my first concern was that she could change her
mind. I remember I immediately went to my room, took
a sheet of paper and wrote as a heading «Contract». They
were just a few lines but very clear: «If Marco Boglione
will not touch a bicycle until his next birthday on 9 May
1967, Anna Boglione will buy him a moped». So I took
that “document” to my mother and asked her to sign it,
which she did with an amused smile. I put my bicycle in the
garage and did not touch one all winter. On 25 April, my
name day, before what was stated in the contract’s terms,
I got my first steel horse, a Giulietta Peripoli model, engine by Franco Morini, single speed, with auxiliary pedals,
bright red. Beautiful. The first contract of my life had gone
through successfully.
29
Tales of grandfathers and children
As I have already told you, Adriano, I attended High
School at Istituto San Giuseppe: three linear, orderly, and
happy years. I really had a great time. I felt more grownup, I was no longer a child. I used to dash around the hills
on my moped with my friends, studied a little and played
lots of golf.
Dad always was the true sporty type – and he still is now
that he is over eighty: he skied, played tennis very well and
at one stage, between thirty-five and forty, he started playing golf. My brothers had been introduced to skiing and
tennis respectively so as the last child it was my turn for
golf, which also perfectly suited my heart condition as it
did not require sudden, intense effort. Dad also had good
company for each discipline. I must admit: it really was a
good life.
Every day after lunch a University student would come
and help me do my homework, and once I had finished
I could catch up with my friends. In the meantime, also
thanks to my grandmothers, I managed to get a new multispeed moped. My beloved «signorina» had left us to join
another family as my mother thought I was old enough to
get on by myself. I was very fond of her and have to admit that I suffered quite a lot for a long time. After a few
30
slowly please, i’m in a hurry
months at Christmas I was bought my first dog to comfort
me, Mirko, a lovely Cocker Spaniel.
My grandparents were also very present at the time. I
spent a lot of time with them; all three of them were quite
different. Grandpa Edo, Mimma and awesome Grandma
Maria (unfortunately my grandfather on my father’s side,
Francesco, died when my father was ten). I was so fond
of the latter that one day when I was eight and was daydreaming of being grown-up and already a parent, I realized a serious problem might arise, forcing me to change
my plans and give up something I was very keen on: being
able to carry on daydreaming that one day I would have
a daughter called Maria Boglione. For a while I was tormented by this issue because I believed my brothers would
be tempted to use the name and realistically they would
be having children before I did. A little while later I faced
facts, determined to solve this problem which was gnawing at me from inside.
One day while we were all having lunch and all interested parties were present, parents and brothers, I got my
courage up and solemnly stated that I loved grandma so
much that when I grew up I wanted to have a daughter and
call her Maria. This statement was obviously welcomed
with the mockery and contempt of those who being older,
for this reason only, feel so much cooler: «You’ve still got
milk on your mouth!». Mum and Dad just smiled, secretly
pleased of the affection I was showing for my grandma,
but did not think it very important. As a matter of fact
nobody knew how important that statement was for me.
It was only the first step along a path that would bring me
to succeed in the endeavour I so much treasured only forty
years later.
That time sitting at the table no one said yes or no, but
from then on I was careful to repeat my intention on every
suitable occasion; my mother thought it was funny and un-
31
tales of grandfathers and children
wittingly helped me a lot because she often told her friends
about the episode and joked about it with my grandmother.
Every time the subject came up I confirmed my intentions
with force, keeping a very serious attitude, and given my age
that made it all the more curious and amusing. Soon this
project was well known to all those we mixed with.
Anyway many years later Francesco had his first daughter and called her Lara; then it was Chicco’s turn, and he
called her Francesca. When it was my turn something
weird happened: thanks to a sensational oversight my first
wife Daniela’s ultrasound told us it was a girl. There were
celebrations all around and everyone congratulated me as
if I had won the Tour de France. They told me: «You did
it! Well done, you’ll call her Maria!». Daniela and I were
very happy. She was because her beloved grandmother was
also called Maria and because she saw me so happy and
proud. Everybody was ready with presents, pink lace and
bibs embroidered with initials, but around 4 am on 25 July
1986 in the delivery room of Bidone Clinic everyone was
flabbergasted: a boy, a healthy boy of just under four Kilograms. The first boy in the family! Daniela was still very
happy, she preferred having a boy really. During the phone
call immediately following the birth my mother anticipated
me: «Well then, has Maria been born?».
«No – I replied – but to make up for it there is a little
Lorenzo, beautiful and healthy!»
We were all happy again. How lucky! Not only did I have
an option on the name Maria, I had also won a son carrying my father’s name. Then Francesco had Anna, after
our mother, followed by Harry and by a girl, named Ruby.
Chicco had two boys, Filippo and Edoardo, after Grandpa
Edo. Two years later, on 25 March 1988, me and Daniela
had Alessandro whose other names are Davide Maria, like
Lorenzo’s. Four children Francesco, three Chicco, and two
for me. It seemed that the party was over. Chance had it
32
slowly please, i’m in a hurry
that the name «Maria Boglione» was to skip a generation,
and it was my fault.
I admit I often felt guilty about it. Almost twenty years
later, in spring 2003, during one of the first ultrasound
scans my second wife Stella’s gynaecologist asked me if I
wanted to know the sex of the baby. After I told him I did
but only on condition she was one hundred percent sure
she told me it was a girl. That was an amazing moment and
I could not hide my emotion so I looked rather weird to a
future mother and a doctor who were both a lot younger
than me. On 9 October 2003, around 8 am, my forty year
old project had finally come true with the arrival of a little
Maria. Fantastic!
My three grandparents were all very different. Mimma was
born in Alessandria in 1905, was still fascinated by the
aristocracy, and was very proud of having attended court
as a young woman. There was a photo in our house of her
greeting Prince Umberto visiting Bardonecchia, where he
is admiring her with the eyes of Bill Clinton in front of
Monica Lewinsky. She really was a delightful woman. She
was not interested in politics and was for us brothers the
most loving and comforting figure in the family. She liked
to tell wartime stories and anecdotes from my mother’s
childhood. My greatest tantrums were soothed by her patient cuddles.
I also received from her a great teaching. She had a
house in via Cibrario 12 that could have been an antiquarian, maybe now it could even be a small museum. She especially liked antique porcelain and collected Copenhagen
plates which she carefully hung on a wall; all but one, the
first of her collection, on show on a small, round wooden
table with one leg resting on a base with three feet (the
most unstable structure in the world), expertly placed on
an 18th century carpet.
33
tales of grandfathers and children
One day Mimma was worried that my exuberance might
cause some damage, so she asked me with heartfelt concern not to run about in the living room as I could knock
over her ornaments. Of course I felt very clever so I started running around keeping at a safety distance from the
furniture, but on the second lap, as I faced a turn to go
through a door, I slipped on the carpet which literally took
off knocking over the table housing plate «number one».
I was so shocked I still remember it; I was so desperate
about my stupidity that I literally turned to stone. Having
heard a bang and the sound of shattering she ran in and
after she had made sure I was not hurt, picked me up,
dumbstruck and terrified, put my head on her shoulder
and started whispering in my ear: «Do you want to know a
secret I have never told anyone before?». I was a bit hesitant and surprised by her attitude – my mother would have
skinned me – so I just nodded. «I hated that plate! I have
been wondering how to get rid of it for a long time. You
have done me a great favour.»
I was still a bit upset but I soon recovered from the great
pain I felt. It was only many years later that I realized it
had been a true act of compassion. Mimma adored that
damned plate.
Grandpa Edo on the other hand was a socialist, a socialdemocrat, like Saragat. He was very sceptical and critical
of the Communists and of the role it was said partisans
had at the end of the war. He considered democratic institutions to be “sacred”; until his death he felt he was an
Alpine Corps Training Officer.
Of course he could not talk politics at home because he
was generally seen as too much of a left-winger, as well as
because he blessed the day the Savoy family had to leave
space for democracy (while Mimma still kept that signed
photograph with Umberto). My political ideas started
then, in the 60s, and they started to form as I watched
34
slowly please, i’m in a hurry
with amusement and curiousity discussions which flared
up suddenly between him and Grandma Maria who was
a passionate Mussolini supporter. As soon as that subject
was touched sparks flew but they were always immediately
separated. Yes, Grandpa Edo and Grandma Maria were
not madly in love, they respected each other but addressed
each other formally throughout their life.
After quarrelling they both felt they had to explain their
point of view and since I spent a lot of time with them I
received a rather radical but totally bipartisan education.
Yes, they really saw things quite differently.
At the end of the 60s Mum started feeling a little better.
Francesco, with a little drama, had got through his college
exams while Italian squares were becoming political hotspots thanks to the demo rallies conducted by students,
workers and intellectuals. It was 1968. The special bond
I share with Francesco was formed in those years, seeing
him do strange things which I did not understand but I instinctively admired because of the courage they required.
After obtaining as a gift a classic Volkswagen camper van
for his successful exams my brother told everyone he
was leaving for a cultural trip to northern Europe with a
friend. In those days travelling was not as easy as it is now
so everyone in the house was a bit nervous about that
adventure.
But the secret plan Francesco and his friend Valerio Pascotto had cooked up was quite different. When they arrived in Trieste they boarded a cargo ship with their van
and started a secret, wild and epic journey all the way to,
can you believe it, Kabul in Afghanistan; one of the cult
destinations of the time where all the good guys of the
world sought refuge, those who did not want to fight,
whatever their political ideas were. My older brother had
become a hippy. At home a surreal atmosphere reigned:
everyone was lost for words and very scared. I vividly re-
35
tales of grandfathers and children
member a few fiery arguments between my mother and
father who blamed each other for Francesco’s behaviour;
I also remember the general gloom after we heard of catastrophic floods in what was then Western Pakistan, with
hundreds of thousands dead and approximately ten million refugees in India at a time when we had no news of
Francesco and we did not know exactly where he was. So
Christmas 1969 was very sad: no one wanted to celebrate
because we had not received any news for quite a while.
36
Entrepreneurial roots
As far as I know my family’s entrepreneurial spirit is rooted in the tale of an enterprising young farmer called Domenica Boglione.
In the mid-1800s on a farm in Bra, in the province of
Cuneo, the girl realized that cattle merchants purchasing
cows reared by her husband’s family were making a good
profit not only selling their meat, but also by selling their
hides – which were in growing demand by the local budding tanning industry – but without raising the price they
paid to the breeders. Legend has it that Domenica convinced her elderly father-in-law to invest his savings to
open, with other local breeders, a tannery. That is when
our family’s first industrial venture took off.
A few years later in 1865 the Domenica Boglione & Sons
Tannery was established.
The vision of a young farmer, who was probably barely
literate, the courage and ambition of a large solid country
family became, in a few decades, a huge industry with large
production plants and thousands of workers. The Boglione family had become “rich”. The only grandparent I have
never met, Grandma Maria’s husband Francesco, was the
son of one of Domenica’s sons.
At the beginning of the 1900s Grandpa Francesco was
37
slowly please, i’m in a hurry
the young offspring of a great self-made industrial family
so he was provided with an education; it appears that
shortly before the outbreak of the Great War he was sent
to America to learn the most advanced tanning techniques
and financial strategies. What is certain is that in 1921
Grandpa Francesco and his brother Bartolomeo acquired
control of one the biggest Italian companies operating in
the field: Concerie Gilardini di Torino, one of the first
companies to be quoted on the Italian Stock Exchange
already in 1902.
During Fascist rule, also thanks to the social and economic development of those years, the company supplied
the army and the institutions enjoying massive growth and
development. In sixty years the family went from breeding
cattle to industry and from the country to the city. Torino’s
branch of the Boglione family was born. Namely us.
Industry in general was expanding, military commissions
were constantly growing, and so was the use of leather:
from shoes to airplane components, military and industrial equipment and countless objects used in everyday life.
Plastic had not yet been invented and the things which are
now made out of this extraordinary material were exclusively made of leather.
Grandpa Francesco was a handsome, dashing man, rightfully part of the jet set of the time. He married Grandma
Maria, a girl from Santena from a family of building contractors whose founder had been friends with Cavour and
had surely made his money with the great public works the
famous Prime Minister commissioned. My father was born
in 1926 so his childhood was spent at an affluent time, full
of great prospects. Sadly in 1937, when he was just fortyseven years old, Grandpa Francesco suddenly died.
In 1939 ww2 broke out and Grandma Maria suddenly
found herself alone with two young children and an aging
brother-in-law, facing a complicated life full of uncertain-
38
entrepreneurial roots
ties which ended in 1943 with an air-raid by the BritishAmerican forces that put an end to the industrial enterprises of the Boglione family’s Torino branch. After the
war , with her children still young, Grandma did not feel
up to rebuilding the factories so Gilardini was converted
to a property company. The company remained on the
Stock Exchange and put its assets up for investment, and
consequently my father and his brother Giovanni were still
quite well off. But it was «goodbye industry».
My father tried more than once to convince his brother
to resume business as building contractors, exploiting the
real estate they owned and the ability to gather funds that
public companies were beginning to enjoy at the time, but
they did not see eye to eye even if it was just to play a
game of tennis, so in 1972 Gilardini was sold to Carlo De
Benedetti who used it as a means to build his group dealing in components which he finally sold to fiat in 1976,
during the four months he spent as its managing director.
Dad married very young: he was twenty-one and Mum
was nineteen. To provide for his family he got a job at
first with riv and then moved to sai insurance, while he
graduated at university. He made a name for himself as a
manager over twenty years until he became the managing
director of an insurance company.
The great turning point came in the mid-70s. Francesco
had finally come back from India – Mum went to get
him back –, but he kept travelling around the world and
managed a shop selling things he bought on his travels.
The shop was called American Disaster and during the
two or three years it was open it was a point of reference
for young people in Torino who were just discovering what
informal and casual wear was all about.
My mother was co-owner wih her friend Franca Buffa of
a nice little firm called La Goccia, selling gifts and dealing in
furniture. At the time she earned more than my father and
39
slowly please, i’m in a hurry
her contribution to the family budget was important, given
that the books were balanced not without a few worries.
Actually we always enjoyed a high standard of living, although we could not rely on the earnings our own business
had provided. Chicco started selling insurance policies while
he attended university, which he never finished either, to afford the luxuries he most enjoyed; he liked travelling around
Africa, flew a glider and always had very powerful motorbikes and stunning girlfriends. He soon convinced his sales
manager at sai to resign and become partners and when he
was just 25 he already co-owned his own sai agency.
Dad worked in Genoa and probably felt a little isolated
from the liveliness of his family. Towards the end of the
70s he became partners with Chicco and his partner who
had given back their agency mandate to sai and, starting
from scratch, had opened a new brokerage firm, abc srl,
Assicurazioni Boglione & Cerrina. No one was stunned
by the imagination shown in choosing a name but a few
years later they purchased a prestigious but ailing company
operating in the field which they developed over the following twenty years and then sold to a large international
corporation.
Uta (Uffici Tecnici Assicurativi SpA), that was the name
of the company Chicco and Dad had bought, marked my
family’s return to the business world after Grandpa Francesco’s death.
I remember that when I was asked what my father did for
a living I was very proud to be able to finally answer that we
had our own company operating in the insurance business.
At the time I was struggling to get through college at San
Giuseppe. I had no one to give me a hand in the afternoon
and soon realized I was heading for disaster. I got through
the first year after spending the entire month of August in
a boarding school in Courmayeur to attempt reparatory exams in three subjects in September. The second year went a
40
entrepreneurial roots
little better, only two exams in September, so I took private
lessons every day in Alassio and then I was unable to sit
the exams because of a rather serious motorbike accident
that kept me in hospital until mid-November 1972. I got
through the exams during a special session but in January
1973 I asked my mother to send me to boarding school.
It was the usual verdict. He is not doing well in school
so he is a bad boy. But it was just that I could not get it
together, I had too many interests and distractions. And
being dyslexic made it all even harder.
The first Sunday of February 1973, after almost five
hours in the car with my mother and Grandma Mimma,
at mid-afternoon and under the pouring rain I entered the
gates of Istituto Filippin, in Paderno del Grappa, province
of Treviso. My first impression was not great: the weather
made it quite gloomy, there were no boys around and the
light in the corridor of the building where I was to sleep
was very dim. My room was absolutely tiny. On one side
of the room there was a bed and a desk with some bookshelves above it; on the other a wardrobe and a sink. The
room was little more than two meters wide. But I was not
that worried: it was more or less how I imagined boarding
school would be. Mum and Grandma Mimma were a bit
more baffled at the idea of leaving me in that place, and
before they left they more or less clearly hinted that if I did
not like it there they would come to pick me up immediately. But my mind was set: I realized that I had wasted loads
of time in Torino and I was beginning to fear I would fail
my final exams. I did not like my image at all: those who did
not know me thought of me as the stereotypical spoiled
brat, too much of a loafer for my liking…
41
Far from home
Adriano, I have to admit that in the new school my academic performance immediately improved a lot. I did not
study much but I was paying more attention during lessons and that helped a lot. The setting also played a part.
There were approximately one thousand pupils between
sixteen and nineteen from more or less all over Italy and
they certainly had not been selected for their good behaviour. The Brothers were numerous and managed the place
with great expertise and skill.
Each one of them had a specific responsibility from treasurer to managing the sports grounds and many were also
teachers. They were all good people. They did not bother
us too much and always made it clear they were there to
help us. They were quite close and very well informed on
what went on in the school, and they very seldom got angry or raised their voice. They never did anything in a hurry, everything happened exactly on time. They did not like
spies or sycophants and most of us got on well with them.
The same rules applied to everyone and almost everyobe followed them. We did a lot of sport and there was a pleasant
atmosphere. I realized from the start that establishing a conflict with them would be the most stupid thing I could do.
The Brothers did their job, which was educating us, well
42
slowly please, i’m in a hurry
and with enthusiasm, and each of us had to find his own
place in the community but could do it without forsaking
his own identity. They were also rather tolerant: if you did
not want to go to Mass no one pestered you.
The only thing you had to avoid was fooling around with
them. Now and again someone would literally disappear
from the scene. Immediate and non-negotiable expulsions
occurred, a bit like Lehman Brothers employees; not many
to be honest, maybe four or five in three years. Legends
about these sudden removals always brought to the same
conclusion: the expelled was a moron.
Some issues had never been subject to discussion. We all
knew the rules and they were quite reasonable: one of these
was that marijuana and all that should not get through the
gate and physical violence would not be tolerated. Those
who got thrown out had either been smoking inside the
school or had started a fight. If they got caught they were
thrown out on the spot. After all they were both totally illegal actions and it was clear they could not be tolerated in
the school.
I quickly settled in and on the whole I came out of that
time quite satisfied, to the point that for many years I
hoped my children would go through the same experience.
But when it came to it thirty years later neither Larry nor
Ali wanted to even hear about it. And anyway things had
changed a lot: in my days there were about forty priests at
Filippin, with an average age of fifty, and now there are a
dozen of them mostly in their seventies. The institution as
I knew it does not exist anymore. That is a real shame.
I only understood the meaning of the saying «in the valley
of the blind the one-eyed man is king» a lot later. When I
heard it for the first time I realized I had instinctively and
rigorously applied it in boarding school. I figured it out on
my own. I followed an instinct I think we all have, especial-
43
far from home
ly the young. I did something without realizing it because I
had a plan, an objective. That time it was self-assigned; if I
had given in and got back into trouble I knew I would have
had a serious problem with myself and I would have had
to rethink my dream of a useful and successful life once
more, but I was not a child anymore. There were plenty of
opportunities among a thousand of us for me to find my
place, and I managed to become part of the higher end of
“society” without too many problems. To be honest I did
it without realizing. I believed my aim was to make up for
my academic shortcomings and lack of discipline which
projected an image of myself I did not like. But academic
performance in boarding school was relatively unimportant; the important things were your personality and your
instinctive ability to live in a group. My natural inclination
for enterprise, stifled by different levels of insecurity, could
only occasionally express itself in Torino as a lone voice;
here it had finally found an ideal environment to move its
first steps. I consider my enterprise in boarding school, after the initial whimper with my hospital hot pads, the real
first milestone of my professional life and thanks to it I
was awarded the best former pupil award thirty years later,
in 2005, an award the Former Pupils of Filippin Institutes
Association hands out with extreme care.
After just two years I had a driving licence and owned a
brand new fiat 127, and I had already travelled from Paderno to Torino and back a couple of times with my friend
and fellow “inmate” Marco Gatta, who did not have a car
yet. During the following summer, the second without exams in September in a row, thus stress-free, cheerful and
creative, I took Grandma Mimma for a tour of Italy.
I liked driving very much: it made me feel grown up and
I was also responsible for my grandmother’s well-being. I
took her to visit Florence, Assisi and the neighbouring region, and we passed through Termoli, where «la signorina»
44
slowly please, i’m in a hurry
was born as well as my best friend in boarding school Francesco Cariello. We went to San Giovanni Rotondo and to
see the «trulli» (typical buildings in Puglia, Southern Italy,
translator’s note) and the caves of Castellana. Grandma Mimma really enjoyed our visit to the first safari zoo in Fasano.
On our way back we drove through Roma and then headed
straight to Alassio. All this in just one week.
During those long hours on the motorway I did a lot of
thinking so I fantasized of taking all my dark room equipment to Paderno with the car, as it had reclining backseats,
which I had left in Torino two years before, and starting
a photography course in school. I also kept track of fuel
consumption and motorway costs to work out how much
it would cost me to drive home from boarding school every weekend for a year. At the time petrol was cheap and
so were the motorways yet travelling by car would cost
about four times as much as the train. On Saturdays we
finished at noon but we had to be back in school by 10 pm
on Sunday. If the train was on time we managed to stay
in Torino just 15 hours, from 9.30 pm to 2.30 pm on the
following day. By car we had 24 hours of freedom, that is
60% more. I imagined that the money I could make from
a photography course would allow me to drive back home
every weekend.
Photography had been my passion ever since I was a
child. I had taken photographs and developed and printed
them since my days in high school. My mother had a little
dark room set up for me and with time through birthday
and Christmas presents I had accumulated a considerable
amount of equipment. At first I used an old camera, a
1933 Leica III, which had been Grandpa Francesco’s. I
took pictures of anything: children, the hills, insects and
spent hours in the dark developing and printing.
Back in school I immediately talked about it with Brother
Guglielmo and offered him a deal: «I will bring from To-
45
far from home
rino all the necessary equipment for a good dark room.
If you let me use the closet next to the physics classroom
during recess, I will organize a photography course for the
school, set a price for it, hold the lessons and you can keep
all the enrolment money». I only asked for the right to sell
the photos we took and keep the proceeds.
The idea went down well and soon the list of optional
activities included my photography course with theory and
practical lessons. Only three people enrolled: Alex Manenti
and my close friends Francesco Cariello and Marco Gatta.
We used half of recess taking photos all over the school
and the rest in the dark room. The Brothers mocked me a
little: they said I would never manage to sell photos to the
other students. But my real plan was different, and it was
a winner. This thousand-strong bunch of strays and runaways had but one purpose in common: to have as much
fun as possible during the holidays and weekends, and in
order to achieve that they needed just one thing, money,
but being that they were there as a sort of punishment
most families were not exactly forthcoming in that sense.
The Brothers allowed me to use the notice board.
When we first exhibited shots of the school’s skiing
competition we met with zero interest. It looked like the
Brothers had been right: no interest and a lot of mockery
and jokes. But I was certain it was just a communication
problem. My peers had not yet realized the full strategic
potential of my offer. What better way to raise a few bob
than sending home every week some beautiful photos of
themselves looking like conscientious young men and asking for double the amount paid?
As soon as people caught on sales skyrocketed. I sold
5x8 photos at 1.500 lire each and they would resell them to
their families at 5.000, with a clean profit of 3.500 for each
photo. Ten photos made 35.000 lire, which at the time was
enough for a whole weekend. In all of this it was obvious
46
slowly please, i’m in a hurry
that I was not selling photos but the possibility of making
money. Which is exactly what I do now, to the point I can
safely state that I do not sell t-shirts but the opportunity
of dealing them to businessmen around the world. That
way sales grow faster than they would if BasicNet had to
directly take care of the entire production and distribution
process around the world.
With the money I made selling photographs it was easy
to enter into another business typical of boarding schools:
the pawnbroker, obviously underground. To raise more
money my schoolmates sold prestigious watches, lighters,
Ray-Ban sunglasses, most of which had “disappeared”
from their homes, for peanuts. The deal was they could redeem them at the same price before the end of the school
year; otherwise they would become mine and I would have
been able to sell them on at a much higher price.
During my last school year with the Brothers of Christian
Schools I travelled to Torino every weekend to go and see
my girlfriend. In the end me and Marco Gatta perfected
a good format. We always travelled with our car full: I
was the pilot, Marco the navigator, and three passengers,
travelling at full throttle but nice and safe. We guaranteed
our customers 24 hours at home and also provided a
sandwich and a Coke which we bought at 11 o’clock recess
in the food store in front of the school. All this for just
10.000 lire, the price of a train ticket. A quick fuel and
toilet break in Novara around 3 pm and off we were again.
The trip took a little over 4 hours. Yes, that community
was full of entrepreneurial opportunities. When I left the
institute I had saved up 1.600.000 lire.
I got on well with all the Brothers, but became especially
close to Brother Guglielmo and Brother Vittorio,
respectively deputee Headmaster and the man in charge
of my floor. Besides them I also managed to establish a
47
far from home
relationof trust with a rather special character, Professor
Candido Sitia, a.k.a. Brother Roberto. He was a respected
mathematician and it was rumoured that he and Einstein had
exchanged a number of letters concerning the calculation
of some integrals related to research on relativity. In those
days there were no computers and all those complicated
calculations were carried out by mathematicians. He taught
physics and took care of both of the school’s laboratories
with his assistant, who was nicknamed Frankenstein, since
his name was Franco, he was rather ugly and had a hump.
Brother Roberto was a scientist with all the trimmings;
he lived in his own little world, walked without looking
where he was going and always wore a polite smile that was
actually meant to conceal his total lack of interest in his
surroundings. If someone asked him a trivial question he
would think for a moment then he would either answer in
Latin or with a dry remark that left you feeling like an idiot.
But always wearing that smile…
I liked him a lot. In those labs I was taught my first elements of information technology, I saw my first computer
and my first colour television, but above all I first realized
how important imagination can be. We measured friction,
inertia, gravity and many other things; Brother Roberto
started to keep an eye on me and I was aware of it. One
day I managed to astonish him and from then on it was
love, undeclared but undying. I had managed to solve one
of the maths problems he liked to put forward to us to
try and verify whether there was «something» inside our
heads «or just a void». This was the question: «One of
the king’s ten tax collectors has re-minted the gold coins
he is to hand over to the royal treasury, making them all
lighter by one gram. The King has ten sacks of coins, one
from each collector, each containing a different number
of coins, and a set of scales; but he must find out who
the disloyal collector is with one weighing. How can he
48
slowly please, i’m in a hurry
do that?». I solved the problem in a couple of hours and
Brother Roberto was over the moon.
It was in that rather fun environment that I got ready for
my final exams. I cannot deny my maths paper was rather
good. Then Brother Roberto questioned me about physics.
His smile that time betrayed true satisfaction. From where
I had started three years earlier, having studied very little
and being who I was, I only wanted to pass the exams and I
would have been quite happy with 36/60 (the lowest pass).
I could hope for 42 or at most 44. After the exams were
over and just before I left to go back home Brother Vittorio cracked a joke on Brother Roberto who, according to
him, had started one of his usual hopeless battles trying to
convince the committee to give me a much higher mark. I
did not really understand what he meant until I received a
call in Alassio from Guido, the school’s switchboard operator, telling me I had been awarded 58/60. Amazing!
No one would believe it: it was a very high and prestigious
score. Many years later the Brothers, who I still occasionally visit, confessed that I was given such a mark just to
appease Brother Roberto who would have otherwise never
stopped going on about it. It appears he told the chairman of the exam committee that if they did not give me
60/60 they could not ever give that much to anyone else.
I can just imagine him saying that with the hat little smile
he wore even when talking seriously. In the end he had his
own way, although he could do nothing about my conduct
score of 9/10 which effectively made it impossible to give
me 60, so they settled for 58.
49
The red bow
My success in maths paved the way for my choice of University. I enrolled in Engineering School: it proved to be my
“grave” but also my fortune. I soon realized that kind of studies would have provided absolutely no chance of success.
I took some easy exams: drawing one and two, physics
one and chemistry. I studied but understood nothing. I
tried to daydream, to imagine myself as a great professional, maybe a designer but I just could not do it. I saw
my parents’ friends who were entrepreneurs and saw they
were wealthy, owned boats and maybe even a Ferrari, and
I envied them. That is exactly as I imagined myself. As I
pointlessly dragged myself to University I looked for some
work: at Christmas I delivered parcels for Mum’s shop, I
took photographs of the children of our family’s friends,
did some wedding photography, and spent a few hours
helping my photographic wholesaler during the holidays.
With the usual support from my mother and some help
from my girlfriend – Valentina, the first true love of my
life who had given me a female German Shepherd I called
Tina in her honour – I turned myself into a breeder. Mum
bought me Walker, a beautiful German Shepherd that was
rather aggressive with strangers, and the first litter of thirteen puppies soon arrived!
50
slowly please, i’m in a hurry
One afternoon I went with Valentina to enci, the Italian
Kennel Club, and discovered that to register as a breeder
you only needed two dogs with a pedigree, a little money
and an official stamped application. It seemed too easy. I
asked what kind of name I could use and they replied anything I liked as long as it was not too similar to an existing
registered breeder. I asked if it had to be an Italian name.
«No, whatever you want!» said an annoyed secretary. So
I registered as a breeder with the peculiar name of «Von
Walktina. German Shepherds».
I had to get the news out that I was selling pedigree puppies. I had to grab some attention. I wrote a slightly ungrammatical ad for La Stampa (national newspaper based in
Torino, translator’s note) hoping that readers might be fooled
into thinking it was a real German breeder with real German dogs. It worked a treat.
I immediately received a number of phone calls followed
by visits. The first question was always why we had a German name and I always gave the same answer: my mother
had relatives in Germany and all prospective customers
were satisfied with that. The first day following the ad a
woman wearing a fur coat arrived with a chubby little girl
who insisted she wanted a particularly small and ugly female puppy Valentina liked because it was the weakest and
frailest of all. For this reason I had tied a red bow round
its neck and told people it had already been sold. The girl
threw a real tantrum because she wanted that dog and that
dog only but I could not give it to her. Finally her mother
was able to calm her and took the best-looking male puppy. I had noticed the girl had been attracted by the bow
which made the animal cuter but I was also worried that
the first customers would choose the fittest dogs and that
it would then be difficult to sell the others.
Starting with the next customer I began to dress up the
dog I wanted to sell with the bow. Children would get
51
the red bow
there and almost invariably befriend the funny puppy with
the red bow and insist to have him. After playing reluctant with the mother for a while I pretended to give in to
please the child. I put the bow on another dog looking like
I was doing something inappropriate and gave the chosen
one to the spoilt child and his rather flattered mother. So
everyone was happy and I got to keep the best specimens
of the litter.
I was very proud of that little trick which kept on working perfectly throughout my three years as a breeder. More
money. Few expenses. To be honest Mum covered most of
the expenses: food, shelter and the vet. The profit afforded
me a nice Honda 350 and equally nice evenings and holidays
with my friends. In the meantime I attended the Polytechnic
less and less, with immense effort and without any conviction.
52
PART III
On the path of destiny
Driven by desire
Dear Marco, listening to your tale is really quite entertaining, despite
our different views.
For example I have never done anything “for money”. When I was
a boy I never had much money. The same goes for my years at university. Even now that I am, like you, over fifty, when I do things outside
of work (like organizing a concert, play music, write a book or do
something for charity) all I am interested in is other people’s wellbeing
or in expressing myself or the things I hold dear: financial gain is not
part of my make-up…
Yet I enjoy listening to you and I am also attracted to this daring
way you have of doing things for a profit. And I think: thanks to this
mentality of yours a lot of people earn a salary and can support their
families with dignity. And for this I hold you in great consideration.
And what about me? I am a journalist, I inform people and with
my wife I support and feed our family, our daughters. It might be
commendable, sure, but it seems to me that what you achieved is truly
great…
Beyond what we have achieved and our different “missions” as
young men we both acted driven by the desire to be ourselves. The same
motivation is still behind what we do today!
When I was at university I too was seeking for my professional calling. And although I decided to enrol for a philosophy degree because
of the interest one of my college teachers had aroused in me, my secret
54
slowly please, i’m in a hurry
“dream” – to use your own words – was to become a journalist. I
felt that was the job that would make me feel accomplished. And
that I would have to do everything possible to bring my destiny into
being…
What is more, at the time a dear friend, don Primo Soldi, had
introduced me to the world of the printed word. And my desire had
grown stronger! So while you were getting restless at the Polytechnic,
a few years later I started feeling the same at Palazzo Nuovo, where
Humanities are housed in Torino, because I did not see any openings
to realize my true ambition.
55
A decisive encounter
What about me, Adriano? When I went to University I could
no longer daydream. I struggled to study and it was much
easier for me to think about what I would do after I graduated than concentrate on the immediate task.
I started my second year of engineering clearly feeling it
was a waste of time and wondering how I could get out
of it. I was late with my exams and I realized I would not
be able to catch up. I had to reconsider my aspirations and
felt terribly vulnerable because I was looking for a way out
knowing full well that I had hit a dead end. And it was then
that chance had me meet Maurizio Vitale. It was a Sliding
doors moment.
December 1976: I was in Sestriere for the weekend staying
in the apartment our parents had given us brothers in use. Obviously it was always full of young people coming and going.
It was there that I first met Maurizio, who had been invited
over by my brother Chicco.
We went to sleep in the same room where there were two
bunk beds. The lights went out and we started talking. Maurizio asked me what kind of job I would have liked to do. I
replied that I did not know, I would not have minded being
a photographer but I was studying engineering so…
Maurizio was eleven years older then me (I was just twenty
56
slowly please, i’m in a hurry
then) and at the time he was the talk of the town; the newspapers wrote about him and that advertising campaign for
Jesus Jeans that had raised such a scandal with a photograph
showing a bottom clad in denim hot pants and the caption
«Chi mi ama mi segua» (lit. «Let those that love me follow
me», a misquoted verse from Matthew 16, 24 made popular
in this form by Italian authors such as Alberto Moravia, Mario Soldati and Giovanni Guareschi and also used by Pope
Paul VI on 16 February 1972, translator’s note) . We turned
the lights back on and spent most of the night talking. The
following day we went skiing. At one point while queuing
for the skilift, Maurizio met a couple of acquaintances and
introduced me as «Marco Boglione, the new Marketing Director at Jesus Jeans». I thought he was kidding.
The following Monday around 6 pm I was at home watching tv instead of studying. The phone rang: it was Vitale’s
secretary asking me if I could go and see him. I drove my
blue fiat 127 at breakneck speed down the hills and a little
later entered Maglificio Calzificio Torinese for the first time.
The same entrance now used by BasicNet, in a square now
carrying Maurizio’s name. He received me in his office, now
my secretary’s office and called in two or three people working for the company. He asked Mrs. Lucca to show me some
advertising campaign photographs: they were mostly by Oliviero Toscani. We started talking and he went straight to the
point telling me that if I was interested he would help me to
start working for him.
Everything had happened so suddenly; I was dazed but
quite enticed by his proposal.
But I was enrolled at University how was I going to do this?
Vitale hinted at the possibility of working as Toscani’s assistant and go with him on his photo shoots. I met Oliviero for
the first time in a restaurant in Genoa and he immediately
started a discussion with Maurizio arguing over the new ad
campaign. Vitale also often consulted Armando Testa, who
57
a decisive encounter
he admired enormously, and used a small agency called Viva,
owned by advertiser Giorgio Caponetti, who was entrusted
with running the company’s campaigns.
After just fifteen days with Maurizio Vitale it was already
time for the first photo shoot. We took pictures in Milan
for an entire afternoon; I quietly worked very hard. As
chance would have it our models were two friends of mine
from Milan. Then Maurizio asked Caponetti to give me a
job at Viva and at the end of December 1976 I sat at my
first workplace.
58
A change of gear
I still was a University student, a future engineer, but it was
all just theory. It is a lot easier for me to learn while doing.
So I let myself go with the flow and started doing. I stayed
at Viva for about three months: officially I was a copywriter
and in the meantime I spent a lot of time with Maurizio.
He was a successful and wealthy thirty-year old but beyond this he had become a real friend for me. One night
towards the end of March at the Torre di Pisa restaurant
in Milan he told me that he was willing to offer me a job at
Maglificio Calzificio Torinese.
The moment had come to talk about all this to my family. During the previous three months, while working at
the agency I had managed to keep my foot in two camps
and was still officially enrolled at the Polytechnic. I asked
Maurizio to come and talk to my father about it. He was
well known in the family and I had heard positive and flattering comments about him more than once.
He agreed. A few evenings later he came round for dinner: my father listened to him and asked him what role he
imagined for me. Maurizio said I could do well in marketing. It might seem strange but thirty-two years ago marketing and its role in a business were not as clear to people as
they are now. My father made a few considerations about
59
slowly please, i’m in a hurry
the strategic importance of marketing, more to look professionally up-to-date than for anything else, adding that I
would still have to graduate from University even if it was
not out of Engineering School.
So I enrolled at the faculty of Architecture. But I never
set foot inside there, I never even went to pick up my academic transcript.
A few days later Maurizio called me into his office. He
called Mrs. Viziale, the head of human resources, and told
her he wanted to employ me as a seventh level clerk, the
highest before entering into management, with the minimum retribution legally required for that status. He added
that I was almost an engineer (he loved that kind of exaggeration), that I was on the ball and that I would have to go
through company training just like he had. A bit like I was
his younger brother.
Mrs. Viziale diligently took note, congratulated me and
told me to go and see her later to take care of formalities. At that point Maurizio opened the door connecting
his office with the president’s, currently my own office:
«Mr. Lattes – he said – I would like to introduce our new
Marketing Director». I was not yet twenty-one and was
often prompted by my appearance to lie about my age to
get people to take me seriously. I really looked like a child.
Mr. Lattes was a peculiar type, basically a real gentleman;
he had been Managing Director of mct when Maurizio’s
father had still been alive. He then became President and
had taken care of the Vitale family like a second father: he
loved Maurizio very much.
Lattes smiled a little and asked me what kind of experience I had, but before I could reply that I had none, Maurizio pressed on saying that I was two exams away from
graduating as an engineer. I shook my head and hurriedly
clarified that it was not true and that on the contrary I had
only taken a few exams; but Lattes knew him well, paid
60
a change of gear
no notice and said that anyway I looked like a good boy, I
was well dressed and clean-faced. He formally welcomed
me to the company and told me I could count on him for
help if the need arose. Lattes and I always enjoyed a good
relationship.
My life had completely changed and I had abandoned
what I was doing almost suddenly, running quite a risk. I
had not taken much time or made much effort to project
my imagination towards a future I liked any more than the
prospect of another four years at Polytechnic.
Risk means gambling with what constitutes at that time
the good you are seeking. Going forward often means just
overcoming barriers.
Even today to move forward as an entrepreneur I need
something to fascinate me, to attract me, to make me daydream, forcing me to use my mind and the information I
have accumulated inside it up to now. Maybe that is the
reason why I almost instinctively shun situations of permanent stillness: they scare me because I think that my
ability to run risks will fail and consequently so will my
nature as a navigator of life. Which is the thing about myself I like the most.
61
From the factory to New York
I left the Viva agency and found myself working night
shifts in the weaving department; I had to keep an eye
on machines coming to a halt either because of a broken
thread or a broken needle or more simply because a reel
was finished. My duty consisted in, first of all, not falling
asleep, and secondly in calling the department manager,
who most of the times was sleeping, to start the machinery up again. Obviously, dear Adriano, after a few days my
night shift supervisors were able to snore the night away
because I could easily do that very simple job on my own.
Luckily this first assignment only lasted a month. I was
then assigned to «Disposizione filati per la produzione» department. A crazy job that any pc could do now but that
at the time required about a dozen trained staff with huge
tables covered in really small numbers written by pencil
so they could be continuously changed and updated. Although for a dyslexic like me it was absolute torture more
than a job, I spent two great months with very skilled and
friendly colleagues. After that, Maurizio wanted me to experience sales so I was sent to the warehouse department, a
room with five girls all a little older than me who kept track
of goods going in and out of about twenty warehouses all
over Italy updating tax books. My boss was called Wilma.
62
slowly please, i’m in a hurry
After a few days in the office I started travelling around
to check the situation on site. That was my first proper assignment, «warehouse supervisor». I had to go and visit our
agents with huge printouts and decide what to send them
out of the stock sitting in our headquarters. The situation
was utter chaos: there was no reliable data support and all
contained in those huge folders was an enormous quantity
of mistakes. That is when I realized how much companies needed and still need real time information. Without
it management is conditioned by a series of errors adding
on one another and amplifying each other creating the
kind of problems that will slow it down, decreasing its
precision and reliability, raising costs indiscriminately thus
limiting its competitiveness. Later, when I became an entrepreneur, this concept was one of the founding pillars I
tried to build my business on.
Many years later, in November 1995, while reading Bill
Gates’ first book The Road Ahead, I found that this was one
of the points he most insisted on. A printout is in itself
a very bad sign of the state of a company’s management.
In its 25-year-long life BasicNet has never ever produced
one! In 1999 Gates further developed this concept and
introduced the idea of «business at the speed of thought»
and of «digital nervous system» for companies. It is more
likely that simple clerks relying on precise and up to date
information will take better decisions than a top manager
relying on old or wrong information would.
But let’s go back to mct. I took care of the warehouses
for more or less a year; Maurizio wanted to be a little hard
with me, although he was not at all really, and wanted me
to travel a lot. At the time I was allowed to stay at headquarters only half a day a week, Friday afternoon, when I
would inform Lattes on what I had found out on my travels and check out the printouts. Those were good times: I
drove over 70.000 kilometres in a year and in spring 1978
63
from the factory to new york
my mother decided to change the fiat 127 she had bought
me when I was eighteen with a car she said would be safer and a little more comfortable, a purple-red four-door
Volkswagen Golf 1100 gl. To say I was proud of it is a
complete understatement.
Thanks to my travel and mileage allowance, and my wages I first experienced the pleasant feeling of being independent. In 1978 I made on the whole a little less than 14
million lire after tax. In those days that was lot of money
for a young man of 22.
As for University I had gone beyond the point of no
return, the matter was closed forever. While I oversaw
the warehouses I also travelled with Vitale a lot. He often
went to the States to buy denim (the material used to make
jeans), as at the time it was almost impossible to find good
quality denim in Italy, but above all he went to get inspiration on market trends. So in December 1977 he took me to
New York for the first time. It was a fantastic experience.
Maurizio absolutely loved the States and especially New
York for its modern, dynamic spirit. We would go back
there many times but I will never forget one episode from
that first time.
Maurizio always extolled the virtues of the Big Apple.
Among these there was a really great restaurant which he
found hard to describe to someone like me who had such
a different and traditional view of the catering business.
The thing that had struck me most of his tales was that in
that restaurant there were no knives and forks so people
ate using their hands. The first time Maurizio took me to
McDonald’s in New York I was very impressed; maybe
that is why I still occasionally really enjoy a Big Mac.
At that point almost ten years had gone by since Maurizio
had substantially transformed his family’s business from a
tired manufacturer of socks and underwear into a fresh and
64
slowly please, i’m in a hurry
lively company leading the new sector of casual and informal wear with its brands, Jesus Jeans and Robe di Kappa.
But now the cultural atmosphere had changed. I constantly picked up signs of this change and quickly pointed them
out to Vitale. Maurizio told me that he had decided to start
producing jeans with his friend Oliviero Toscani at the end
of the 60s after seeing just how many young people were
wearing them in Central Park. And then he decided to call
them Jesus after passing the Broadway theatre where Jesus Christ Superstar was showing. The name was Toscani’s
idea and apparently his motivation to Vitale had been: «It’s
a nice name; and lots of people already know it».
The concept of unisex had been fundamental to the cultural movement of the 60s but it was no longer that important
to my generation. In February 1978 while we hit the shops
in New York, like we always did to see what was happening
on the market, Maurizio and I saw one of the first Athlete’s
Foot retail stores, one of the forerunners of the more wellknown Foot Locker. We talked in front of the shop’s window for a good half an hour: I remember telling him that
kind of shop could be the «jeans shop of the year 2000».
I reckoned that shops for the new generations I felt I belonged to would be less “hippy-ish” and more “sporty”.
Maurizio, who was very clever and curious, listened to
me and also asked me a few questions, but appeared to
not really take my vision too seriously, so we rounded off
our expedition by raiding Bloomingdale’s, as usual, buying
the best stripy polo shirts which would invariably later become a part of the Robe di Kappa collection.
The following day was Sunday and we were to travel back
to Italy. As usual before heading for the airport we took a
stroll round Central Park. A few months later we were all
watching the France-Italy football match at the World Cup
in Argentina; a twenty-year-old Antonio Cabrini was play-
65
from the factory to new york
ing on the Italian side for the first time. He came from a
well-to-do family, he was wealthy, well-bred, educated, and
above all quite handsome, a precursor of Kakà so to speak,
at a time when the footballer stereotype was extremely
distant from the world of fashion and the lifestyle of the
young. Maurizio noticed him and during the match kept
pestering his friends, who did not take much notice, telling
them that was the new role model the young would love
and follow. Someone raised the objection that he was “just”
a footballer, as if to say that rock stars were still on another
level. Maurizio insisted a little but then that was it.
Well, before the World Cup was over Maurizio, without
too many words or business plan talk, had already convinced Boniperti to let him put the Robe di Kappa logo on
the Juventus shirt (for the first time in Italy) and the day the
Italian team got back from Argentina he was at Malpensa
sweet-talking Cabrini’s father, whose son had become for
the entire nation «il Bell’Antonio» (Handsome Antonio).
A few days later Robe di Kappa had an extraordinary testimonial and had become the first clothing company to
sponsor a Serie A team. And may I add: what a team!
Vitale had opted for a strategic change of direction: no
more references to juvenile transgression and the cultural
revolution of the 60s. He would bet on the future, on wellbeing, on health, on the good boys, successful and above
all sporty. It was a bit of a shame no one in the company
had ever even heard of sportswear until then. But that was
another issue (a sentence Maurizio always used to avoid
any opposition to his plans by Mr. Lattes).
So a little later I started on another great adventure. One
evening in his office Maurizio, in front of his trusted production manager Elio Porta, who had already been fully
briefed, told me he had decided to launch the sports line.
«Get ready to leave. You have become Robe di Kappa
Sport’s Sales Director!»
66
slowly please, i’m in a hurry
Mr. Porta sneered while I was obviously over the moon.
Shortly afterwards I asked Maurizio when he had decided to enter into sports. He told me it had been back in
New York, but not outside Athlete’s Foot which he found
awful – and rightly so – but on the following day in Central
Park, because he had noticed that many young people that
would have been wearing jeans ten years earlier were now
wearing tracksuits and jogging. But at the time he still did
not know where to start from; he told me his eureka moment had come later, watching Italy play on television.
67
A brand new company
Vitale wanted it all new: the product, the company structure
and organization and, above all, he wanted the sales network
to be separated from Robe di Kappa’s and Jesus Jeans’. He
gave me 10 million lire and sent me on a mission telling me:
«Take this money, go to the States, hit all the main sports
shops and buy all the sportswear you can see». I left on my
own bearing in mind that the money had to cover everything: travel, hotels, restaurants and taxis. I went to the best
sports shops in New York, Chicago, Phoenix (Arizona), Las
Vegas – where there was and still is an important sports fair
– and San Francisco.
The first surprise was that at the time there was very little
sportswear in the States. Or rather there was technical wear
to practice all and every sport on earth, but not what we
wanted to make: sportswear for leisure. Anyway I bought
lots of stuff in shops, second hand and military surplus
stores. I also bought a number of books and sports magazines. In every city I visited I spent hours in shops, observing young people on University campuses and in parks
and watching television. There were actually a lot of people
jogging and quite a few wore tracksuits on tv.
I called Maurizio every day and told him about my trip.
After about ten days I had to admit I had not found much,
68
slowly please, i’m in a hurry
I had run out of money and would have to go back. Vitale
sent me more money and told me to go to Los Angeles
and carry on buying whatever I though interesting that
was sports-related and bring it back home. We would find
a use for it.
At the fair in Las Vegas, mostly exhibiting sports equipment rather than shoes and clothing at the time, I saw
something which was really new. A few guys in California
had integrated a brick-sized tape player into a kind of backpack to be fastened to one’s chest with elastic straps, and
connected to a pair of headphones. That was the first time
I had ever seen something built for listening to music while
doing sport and obviously I bought it, thus giving quite
a blow to my funds. A few years later Sony would launch
its first walkman, just slightly bigger than the tape itself, a
forerunner of the iPod.
I travelled back to Italy with all my booty and we started
working on our first collection. At the same time I began
travelling around Italy to select sales reps for the newlyborn Robe di Kappa Sport. Vitale wanted it to be completely different and independent from the company’s
other product lines. I thought of a strategy and he approved it: we would visit the three best sports shops in all
the main towns around the country, explain to the managers who we were and what we wanted to achieve and ask
them who they thought were the best sales reps in the area.
Again these were people selling football, tennis or volleyball shoes, balls, racquets, skiis and boots; no one had any
experience of clothing. So before leaving the area I would
contact all the people I had been suggested and ask to meet
them in a hotel. The retailers were very helpful and almost
all the reps came to meet me.
Robe di Kappa was already well-known and Maglificio
Calzificio Torinese was perceived as a serious company
69
a brand new company
with an established tradition behind it. I gave everyone the
same speech, what we would now call the vision. I spoke
to over sixty candidates and it really was a gruelling job;
in Naples I caught the flu and conducted a few interviews
while feverish. Many of these people, seeing I was so young
and a good talker, were a bit offish and I immediately realized they were not interested. I have to admit now that the
expedition was a bit of a disaster, especially because when
I got back to Torino I could not remember anything about
the interviews even if I had taken notes; I said nothing to
Vitale and set up the sales network anyway.
New products, collections and a first catalogue saw the
light. It was the end of 1978 and Kappa, now considered
one of the world’s leading brands of sportswear, had just
been established. That date marked the start of two fantastic working years full of great satisfactions.
While the traditional lines still enjoyed a good level of
success Maurizio had in the meantime diverted most of
Robe di Kappa’s marketing investments on sport, even if
sales of this product line were still not very significant. So
things were looking up, for the company, for me and for
my new project.
70
A little mishap along the way
At the beginning of 1980, right when things were taking off,
something unexpected occurred. My family – my mother,
father and brothers – started to pressure me to leave Vitale,
although I had given up on University and gained valuable
experience on the field, to join the family brokerage firm
and work for myself instead of remaining an “employee”.
Their pressure got the better of me. I was unable to resist
and left Vitale; but without losing him. On the contrary I
can state that oddly enough this episode actually cemented
our friendship even more.
I became officially part of uta on 1 April 1980. I started
working hard right away as a deputy head at the Technical
Department. I think I did a good job there. But I soon
realized it was like being back at Polytechnic. I could not
“dream” and clearly felt I was deceiving myself. I wanted
to be creative but my father only owned half of the company and if that was not enough my direct boss was effectively my brother. It just could not work. During the
summer holidays of 1981 I made my mind up: I could not
carry on like that. I had to go back to Maglificio Calzificio
Torinese, to my Kappa, to Vitale who believed in me more
than I did myself.
That was just what Maurizio had been waiting for and one
71
slowly please, i’m in a hurry
night over dinner at Pollastrini’s in corso Valdocco, Torino,
after intense negotiation on terms of contract we shook
hands. Vitale offered me an excellent salary as Sales Director of the Robe di Kappa and Kappa Sport brands. Seventy
million lire after tax and an executive position at just twentyfive were something quite extraordinary. I was elated.
Every time Maurizio reached a deal he always set a next
step so he said: «It’s a deal but you sign tomorrow and
start within a month».
I spent the night thinking; my life would once more change
dramatically, I was retracing my steps, going to work for
uta had been a mistake… From the high spirits of a few
hours earlier I sank to the murky depths of anxiety and
insecurity. I decided I would tell Vitale that I needed some
time, not because I was having second thoughts but to
manage things with my family… But it was a lie: I was
torn apart on whether I was doing the right thing and really afraid I was doing the wrong thing. In any case Maurizio gave me some time: I had to give him an answer
within the end of the following week, after that the offer
would no longer stand.
The money he was offering was three times what I was
earning then and this was very interesting for me as it really made a difference, but I feared it was an opportunistic
choice and would not last.
So I talked about it at home. I did not get the best reaction and I did not like this at all. I was very disappointed
to see that my father and brother were almost completely
indifferent to what I really felt, to my need to choose the
right way in life, the best path for my character and spirit.
There was virtually no discussion at all. To them my decision would simply be wrong, and in the long run it would
be inconvenient both for me and for my family. They also
emphasized that we would not look very good with the
72
a little mishap along the way
rest of uta’s partners who had given me their trust by
welcoming me to the company.
Although as usual my mother was trying to keep above
sides, she also tried to hold me back; but she gave me
some advice which turned out to be very useful. She advised me to seek the council of a few people of proven
wisdom and professional experience, hoping this would
help me decide to stay at uta. I made appointments with
some of my father’s friends, entrepreneurs and managers,
but obviously they all advised me to face some sacrifices
and stay with the family firm. All but one. After I had illustrated my situation and concerns in depth, which he
already knew in part as I was flirting with his daughter, he
became even more serious than usual and said: «I know
you’ve asked other “oldies” for advice and I don’t need
you to tell me what their advice was. I’m fond of you,
you’re a good lad and for this reason I’ll take on a great
responsibility, so put it to good use. Listen to your heart
and go back to Maurizio». I stepped out of Gianluigi Gabetti’s office beaming.
Dear Adriano, I think that if today I have a tale as an
entrepreneur to tell it is basically thanks to that meeting.
Gabetti gave me the courage to hurl my heart over the
hurdle, he explained in a few words that there is no party
without risking. Gianluigi is an extraordinary person. His
role, image and manners are worthy of a world champion
in rigor and discipline, but he is even more kind-hearted,
imaginative, ironic and generous. My decision was taking
a definitive shape. Gabetti had served me an assist I could
not fail. I still tried to get my parents to approve my decision but my father’s final answer was that after all it was
my decision only; and added icily: «Just remember that if
you leave you will not be welcome back».
After those words I had no doubts left: I immediately
went to see Vitale. The critical moment had come when I
73
slowly please, i’m in a hurry
would break with the family business to go back where I felt
I could start dreaming again.
I was very nervous. Maurizio obviously changed the deal
a little in his favour scaling my salary down with the excuse
that I could not earn more than his production manager
who was much older than me. So on 1 June 1982, with a
fabulous salary for a lad of barely 26, I was back at my
beloved desk as Sales Director and not just for my sportswear line but also for the great Robe di Kappa. After a few
months I was back on track and the prestigious financial
weekly il Mondo on 6 December 1982 wrote about my first
promotion after my return:
k-man for jesus. He is not yet 27 but he already
is the head of sales and marketing at mct (Maglificio Calzificio Torinese), the group lead by
Maurizio Vitale that in 1982 with its various
brands (Jesus Jeans, Robe di Kappa, Kappa
Sport) will invoice over 100 billion lire. Marco
Boglione, who was promoted to his new post
Wednesday 24 November, started his career at
mct where he launched the Kappa Sport line
achieving sales worth 30 billion a year. He then
left Vitale to go and work for one of the main
brokers in Piemonte. But it was a short lived
separation: Boglione has returned to mct and is
now one of its top executives.
The first half of the 80s were good for mct and it enjoyed
massive expansion: they were the years of the sportswear
boom and of internationalization. Our forecast had been
correct and we were reaping the rewards. But the peak was
the sponsorship for the u.s. athletics team signed by Maurizio in 1981 for the Los Angeles Olympics of 1984. To me
that was one of his smartest, bravest and canniest opera-
74
a little mishap along the way
tions. Thanks to an acquaintance he managed to meet Ollan Cassell, former u.s. Olympic gold medallist and world
record holder in Tokyo in 1964 on the 4x400 metres relay,
a former miner, catholic, father to six lovely children, and
Executive Director of usa Track and Field. The deal was
clinched in a restaurant. Cassell asked Vitale to make his
bid; Vitale stated he would but on one condition, that if
it was accepted Cassell would tell him how much Adidas,
whose contract was about to expire, paid. The American
agreed and Vitale offered one million dollars a year for
four years! Cassell pulled a pen out of his pocket, wrote
«$ 1.000.000» on his napkin and said to Vitale: «Sign!». Vitale signed the napkin and they shook hands. Adidas paid
40.000 dollars a year!
Thanks to that daring sponsorship we started selling in
the usa and the Japanese market had opened up to us.
The beginning of the 80s was undoubtedly a good time.
Social tension eased a little, terrorism was not so rife and
the march of the forty thousand in Torino had marked
a positive turning point, inflation and interest rates had
started to fall off after terrible years and they were happy
times for Maurizio also on the personal side. On the one
hand the company was growing unhindered and things
around us just kept getting better, and on the other Vitale
was experiencing great emotional security. He was in love
with Carolina, a beautiful Dutch girl who he had decided
to set up his second family with.
At this point everything was truly hunky-dory but it
was then that Maurizio’s family and personal misfortunes
started. But that is another story.
75
The decline
Soon after that Vitale’s fate took a turn for the worst. In the
beginning of 1981 Carolina had had a daughter, Maria, but
she was stillborn. For Vitale it was a terrible blow. Luckily a
year later a healthy boy came along, Oliviero, and it looked
like he had found happiness again.
But real tragedy struck on 7 April 1984. It was a rainy afternoon and I was sitting in my office around 4 pm when the
switchboard put a call through. It was the police and they
wanted to talk to a company manager.
«What is your post? Are you an executive?»
I confirmed my rank but they persevered: «What is the relationship between the company and Mrs. Carolina Blaauw?».
I explained she worked in the Styling department but that
she was also Maurizio’s partner. «Do you know Mr. Vitale
well?» I answered affirmatively as I became more and more
baffled. «I’m sorry to have to tell you that Mrs. Blaauw died
in a road accident and is now in the morgue of Rho Hospital while Mrs. Enrica Giachino who was travelling with
her is in the same hospital in serious conditions. Can you
inform their relatives?»
The car was registered in the company’s name so the police had got in touch with a manager and unfortunately it
had been me.
76
slowly please, i’m in a hurry
Maurizio was talking to a stockist. I found him in the collection hall and asked him to come out. I just told him that
Carolina and Enrica had had a serious accident and that
they were in Rho hospital. A few minutes later we were on
a powerful Mercedes 500. Between our headquarters and
the entrance to the Torino-Milano motorway Maurizio, who
was overtaking everyone and burning through red lights,
hit other vehicles three times but without serious consequences, and obviously without stopping. The first part of
the motorway was limited to one lane because of works and
we drove along it at breakneck speed, often in the wrong
direction, invading the opposite lane and getting back in our
own at the last second to avoid smashing into oncoming
vehicles. The last number of this kind he pulled was really
hairy and it was a miracle it did not end in tragedy.
That is when I decided to do something and told Maurizio that if we carried on in that way we would surely end
up dead and it would not be any use because Carolina had
died in the accident.
Maurizio slowed down until he stopped the car. Then he
started abusing me and accusing me of lying. I was struck
dumb. In the end he just started crying desperately. I took
on the wheel and we quickly got to hospital. It was awful: I
had seen savage hate for me in Maurizio’s eyes as I was telling him the terrible news. I think our friendship was never
the same after that.
Two days later Maurizio, after managing to convince the
hospital chaplain to bless Carolina’s corpse for him and
two lone witnesses, left that Church wearing a wedding ring
he never took off again.
Vitale reacted to Carolina’s death with the strength and
courage of a samurai warrior but from that moment things
started to get progressively and irreversibly more complicated. He was like an airplane hit by a missile but he expect-
77
the decline
ed things to go back to what they were before. We friends
and colleagues were aghast at seeing him in such a state.
He dedicated himself obsessively to little Oliviero who
would shortly be three years old, and took up his favourite
pastime again, conquering stunning women, something he
undoubtedly was a master at.
At the end of 1984, almost a year after Carolina’s death,
Maurizio discovered he had aids. He did not tell anyone.
Those were the years when the disease had started to claim
its first victims and was the object of severe prejudice: it
was considered the homosexual illness. It was only much
later that people started to know more about the real risk
of infection. I think Maurizio was the fifth case in Italy of
heterosexual aids.
At the company we knew nothing.
Everything had started with a case of shingles and then
he had to have a big swollen lymph node on his neck surgically removed in the States. The rumour was it had been
a tumour. Thanks to help from influential people in the
world of medicine and other fields he managed to join a
test project for azt, conducted by the fda at a specialized
clinic in Boston. The protocol was extremely rigorous and
it entailed that the pills given for treatment could only be
taken in hospital so Vitale started going to Boston every
week. On Tuesday nights he would travel to Paris, sleep in
a hotel at the airport and the following morning he would
get a Concorde flight to New York where he landed at 8 am
local time. There he took another flight to Boston where
he landed around 10. At 11 he swallowed the pill e immediately started on his way back, getting on to a Jumbo for
Italy in the evening which landed at Malpensa at 7 am. With
a driver he managed to be at the office at 9.30 tops having
missed just one day at work.
It was a crazy situation which left everyone stunned. Luckily an American nurse, moved by this young and dashing,
78
slowly please, i’m in a hurry
yet desperate Italian gave him an extra pill to take to Italy.
But another disaster was looming: when the test program
was started all patients were told that a certain percentage
of them would be given placebos. The list of them was top
secret and had been compiled by a computer on admission
to the program.
When Maurizio got back to Torino he immediately had
the pill analyzed. Unfortunately he had just been taking a
placebo. That nightmare ended there and then but so did
any hope of surviving.
Despite his illness Maurizio continued to lead an almost
normal life: work, restaurants, weekends in the mountains
or on his boat. But at the time our arguments had become
more frequent and heated: he was understandably very nervous and maybe I was too young to really understand what
was going on.
Again I perceived a strange state of affairs which did not
allow me to project myself in the future with enthusiasm.
Work was going well, I had plenty of money and chances
to have a good time. One day we were discussing something quite spiritedly – I cannot even remember what –
and Vitale stopped me: «It’s pointless me and you carry on
arguing. Soon I won’t be here anymore and I wouldn’t advise you to stay in the company without me. Go and work
as an entrepreneur, you’re not really a manager anyway. It
would’ve only worked with me on the scene».
Vitale was perfectly right. A few days later I handed in my
resignation. It was 14 December 1984.
79
An entrepreneur at last
During my six-months’ notice I organized my entry at
Football Sport Merchandise Srl, a company my friend Luciano Antonino had opened in May 1983 to market Juventus shirts to fans for the first time in Italy; as Sales
Director of Robe di Kappa that manufactured them I had
followed the project and its first operational steps. Maurizio did not believe in the idea and at first had not felt
comfortable supplying Antonino with a large number of
shirts on credit as he could not guarantee payment. So I
personally guaranteed it and in exchange Luciano offered
me a 50% share in the company for the cost of its start-up
capital: small money.
I bought my share and on 1 July 1985 I was sat in an
office with him in a warehouse/garage inside a former industrial plant converted into spaces for small companies
and artisans. Via Bologna 220/70. My life was starting over
once more.
At 29 I was convinced that Maglificio Calzificio Torinese
was forever behind me and I would have never thought that
nine years later, on 7 November 1994, I would step back in
there as its owner. But that is exactly what happened.
Football Sport Merchandise, currently known as BasicNet,
was my entrepreneurial launch pad. At mct I had learned
80
slowly please, i’m in a hurry
to deal in casual clothing and at one stage I had chipped in
some of my own with my intuition on young consumers’
new need for sportswear. I had also accumulated almost
ten years of experience in company management ranging
from sales to administration, production and finance; but
the most important thing completing my experience had
been living at close range with such a natural entrepreneurial talent as Vitale. In my trips to the States I had witnessed
the dawn of Sports Licensing. Young Americans wanted
more products referring to the sports world but, as I’ve already told you Adriano, there was not much on offer yet.
Being practical and enterprising people the Yankees had
immediately come up with a way to transform their classic t-shirts, baseball caps and a few simple nylon jackets,
already on the market, displaying every possible company
and University logo, into sportswear. All they had to do
was print on them logos and brands belonging to famous
basket, baseball, and football teams. In order to do that, entrepreneurs had to obtain an authorization from the teams:
the license. When Antonino told me about his project I
immediately thought of the opportunity of doing the same
in Italy and since it was a soccer-oriented country I thought
about asking the football clubs for a license.
We really started from scratch. Our first move was handing out leaflets outside Torino’s Stadio Comunale. The leaflets showed a photo of Marco Tardelli in action (he let us
use it for free out of friendship) and informed supporters that from that moment, and for the first time ever, it
was possible to buy original Juventus shirts. All you had to
do was request a catalogue by sending 2.000 lire in stamps.
Then you could place an order with payment on delivery.
We handed out approximately 20.000 leaflets and despite
the complicated procedure the reaction was extraordinary:
we received 12.000 catalogue requests including the equivalent of 24 million lire in postage stamps!
81
an entrepreneur at last
That is how some very demanding but excellent years
started off.
In the meantime me and my first “wife” Daniela had cemented our relationship. Daniela Ovazza started at mct
when I had left to work in my family’s firm. Maurizio had
recruited her one evening at a restaurant with common
friends. She had just graduated in Economy with top marks
and had already been offered a job with auditing firm Deloitte, where she was supposed to start a few days later.
Maurizio insisted so much that Daniela changed her mind
before dinner was over and for the following four years she
became Vitale’s personal assistant, his shadow so to speak,
as well as the youngest member on the board of directors
in mct’s history.
After falling ill, Maurizio encouraged her to leave the
company, as he had done with me, and at precisely that
time we had decided to take our relationship a step further
and had even begun planning a family. She had just separated from her first husband and we spent a lot of our free
time together. We also had to come up with something for
her to do. After her experience at mct, Daniela too was
keen to be an entrepreneur.
We thought about it a lot and considered many different
ideas including some which were quite bizarre. One day we
were in London on a short romantic break; we were going back to my brother Francesco’s house where we were
guests. Obviously it was raining. At one point I said to her:
«Great, as from now we don’t need to think about your
venture anymore!». The taxi we were travelling on had just
been overtaken by a guy riding a motorbike with a trunk
and wearing a top saying: «Messenger Fast Delivery from
Desk to Desk». Underneath there was a phone number.
That was the business idea we were looking for.
Back in Italy within a few weeks we opened Mototaxi Srl
82
slowly please, i’m in a hurry
with two guys from Milan who had had the same idea, and
started work on 17 December 1984. Daniela had her own
company to develop as well, inside a small former workshop in the same industrial plant housing my fsm. Me with
Luciano, she with her sister Mirella. At that point Daniela
decided to come and live in my attic in via Garibaldi.
To start this new stage of our life together we pooled
all our savings and severance pay together and decided we
would give it a go until there was money. We could rely on
approximately 250 million lire. If we could not make a go
of our companies and ran out of money we would go and
look for employment.
The beginnings of our companies were really good times
although very hard. We truly had no money whatsoever.
We had gone from a situation of absolute privilege – young
execs in a successful company with secretaries, designer offices and princely wages – to something which was quite
the opposite. Mototaxi’s first headquarters were rather
run-down and inadequately heated given that it was a warehouse. I was full of imagination and enthusiasm and drove
Daniela who represented the rational element of the couple. We worked like mad. I earned virtually nothing because
money was constantly needed to develop fsm, but luckily
Daniela managed to bring something home because Mototaxi had started to run nicely almost from the start and
did not need much floating capital to grow.
Anyway when a year and a half later, on 25 July 1986, our
first child Lorenzo was born, I had to resort to a small loan
to cover hospital expenses.
Dear Adriano, if what I’m telling you can really arouse the
interest of young people I would like to say something
more: although I remember those times as the most difficult in my life, full of sacrifice and risk, at the same time
I reckon it undoubtedly was the best time of my life, and
83
an entrepreneur at last
the same applies to Daniela. We planned and daydreamed
with a child’s enthusiasm but we confronted reality with an
adult’s composure and awareness. I think that seen from
the outside we could only inspire sweetness and affection.
And many did indeed help us if they could. I am especially thinking of a few bank managers who at times gave us
credit more because of the life aspirations we represented
than because of the figures on our balance sheet. We were
anything but carefree but we were very happy.
In the meantime Maurizio Vitale’s conditions were deteriorating: he had stopped all treatment and was getting
weaker and weaker. Half way through 1986 he decided to
seek admission to Boston’s specialized hospital. Because
of an amazing coincidence that still moves both me and
Daniela he left from Malpensa on 25 July at 12.30; just
in time to visit a new mum and meet Lorenzo, just a few
hours old.
Maurizio stayed in Boston until spring 1987. At the end
of April he was transferred to Italy with a special flight and
died in his own bed on 4 June. Daniela and I had spent his
last New Year’s Eve with him in the Boston hospital.
With Maurizio’s death, Daniela and I felt we had gone
beyond a point of no return. Both our families, for different reasons, had let us know beyond doubt that we could
no longer rely on them, and our great friend and mentor
was gone forever.
In the meantime thanks to Gabetti’s mediation I had realized my first strategic operation as an entrepreneur, selling a
20% share of Football Sport Merchandise to Rinascente. I
had started as an employee but really I had always behaved
as an entrepreneur, and that is what I would continue to do
for the rest of my life.
84
PART IV
Building, listening to yourself
Waiting
This time I have to wait a while: I’m waiting to resume my conversation with Marco. The wait is prolonged, he is in the boardroom
where we talked during our previous meetings, checking a new range
of tops for the K-Way brand.
I am sitting in front of his desk. At one point he opens the door
and shows me a top modelled for us by a pretty employee: it is a
sure winner, beautiful, quite unusual. We will soon see it in shop
windows.
Marco follows everything in person, including the design stage of
his ranges. Or rather he follows this stage above all. In the sense that
he does everything as if it was the most important.
Marco apologizes and the door is shut once again. He will be back
to resume our conversation soon. But for me the wait is quite profitable: it is a chance to better understand who Marco Boglione really
is. An office reveals a lot about its occupant. I look around and I
understand who the president of BasicNet is: a man who adds a personal touch to everything he does, and to everything he achieves. He is
behind every aspect of his company which is like an extension to his
very body. Photography and advertising dominate the room, Marco
is obsessed with both. Only two paintings: a giant photograph of his
second “wife”, Stella, and a composition made up of a number of
square canvases all showing the same landscape, a line of trees, land
and a river flowing. Blue and green are the prevailing colours. Along
86
slowly please, i’m in a hurry
the walls a photo showing him and Maradona (he visited this office
stunning everyone with his footballer skills) sitting back to back
imitating the Robe di Kappa logo. Then photos of Tardelli, Trapattoni, Chiambretti, Vialli, Zaccheroni shot to advertise the company,
many of which taken by Marco in person. On the right a huge print
of the flyer Boglione and Luciano Antonino handed out in front
of Stadio Comunale di Torino thus initiating their venture with
Football Sport Merchandise. Here too a framed print of Oliviero
Toscani’s immortal photograph, (the famous female bottom in denim)
published at the time by an English newspaper with the caption: «If
you love me follow me».
Past and present mix together making the memory of this man
who has in the meantime entered the room and sat himself behind
his desk. This is a place of ideas and discoveries, and I was quite
happy to wait.
Marco never stopped imagining his future even when he was working at mct, on the contrary he tried even harder to visualize what
he would do to keep his ambition high and carry out his projects.
Daniela was undoubtedly the ideal partner for him (he says it himself), conscientious and solid. She wanted to build a future too, and
in her ambitions there was room for a family and some children. To
become a mother and a father, which was, as Marco’s mother said,
the desire «to make a position for oneself». Marco was starting from
scratch but he knew where he was heading: two companies, a family,
a lot of hard work. The fact that he was very good at the latter is
well expressed by the fact that when Vitale had to replace Boglione
after he first left the company to go and work for the family firm he
had to employ four people and a personal assistant: Daniela.
87
Love/1
When I met Daniela she was working as Vitale’s assistant.
She came from a good Jewish family from Torino and was
born in 1956 in Uruguay, where her parents had moved because of the ww2 madness. The entire family moved back
to Italy in 1966, when she was ten years old.
She was the second of five children, four girls and one
boy, and soon established herself as a leader even with her
brother and sisters, a real point of reference then as she
still is now. She always was successful: she is pretty, petite,
nervous, feisty, very clever and very good in school. She
graduated quickly and as I have already said Deloitte, that
looked out for all the best graduates also according to their
social background, immediately offered her a job. But she
ended up with Maurizio Vitale who had been utterly conquered by her.
She arrived at mct immediately after I had left to go and
work for the family firm. One day I had an appointment
with Vitale as an insurance agent but alas it was usual for
him to leave his guests waiting for a while.
So Daniela came over to entertain me. We chatted for ten
minutes in the waiting room and then moved to the coffee
machine to carry on our conversation. After about twenty
minutes – I don’t really know what happened – I took a
88
slowly please, i’m in a hurry
nice ballpoint pen I had in my shirt pocket, gave it to her
and said: «Keep this because one day I will marry you».
And that is what would happen even if Daniela did not
take me at all seriously. She was engaged and was due to get
married soon, but not with me. I guess there is no point in
saying she had struck a chord in me. Anyway a few years
later that vision of mine became reality.
At this point, Adriano, I would like to make a brief digression to illustrate my idea of marriage and thus explain
the meaning of the inverted commas around the word
“wife”…
I have four children with two different women that I have
always considered my wives but never married. Or rather
I was never married by a priest or a government official. I
always felt that accepting the conventional ritual’s formula
and words was like taking a short cut, an alibi that could decrease the intensity and importance that, on the contrary, I
would have to feel invested exclusively myself, my integrity
and loyalty towards my spouse and mother of my children.
If I did not marry with a stencil, with the same formula
applied to everyone, I would have felt more responsible,
which was exactly what I wanted: to feel inextricably bound
to my responsibilities as a parent and as head of a family;
just bringing my own face into the picture, the same face
I see in the mirror every morning when I shave, the same
face I intend to be able to look straight in the eye until I
close my eyes forever. So I thought that in case I ever decided to have children I would make a series of irrevocable
commitments to their mothers, just based on my dignity.
Here they are:
I will do everything in my power to stay with
you forever and grow old with you. I will always take care of your maintenance, health
89
love/1
and quality of life which will never be different
from my own. I promise to educate our children according to a culture arising from our
common feelings.
The lack of reference to faithfulness is no chance. As a
matter of fact I consider it the true separation line between
a rich, solid and aware married life together and hypocrisy.
Yet I believe that promising to be faithful could become,
under certain circumstances, something that could force me
to not keep a promise or lie, the two things I try to avoid at
all costs.
These are the values through which I feel inextricably
bound to both Stella and Daniela. Even more so now that
I have also had the chance to test them after our “married” life came to an end. Our separation lasted five years
before we were both ready (almost concurrently) to start
a new important relationship. We did not go to lawyers,
we always respected each other, and although separated we
have always put our commitments (especially the first) before anything else. It took a lot of effort on both sides but
we are very proud of what we did and so are our children.
Daniela and I are now certain that if our health allows it we
will grow old together.
I think that if on the other hand we had signed a piece of
paper including a legal clause for annulment, it would have
been much easier, when the going got really tough, to give
in to the temptation of parting company via the official
legal path, but we would have betrayed our real intimate
desires, reflected in those commitments.
Fifteen years later more or less the same thing happened
with Stella. One day in June 1998 I was taking part in a
seminar of the Council for the United States and Italy, of
which I am a member, organized by Studio Ambrosetti
90
slowly please, i’m in a hurry
di Milano in Cernobbio, Lake Como. The conference was
very interesting but there was something else behind the
speakers’ table attracting my interest far more than what
was being said: a young, beautiful Asian girl leading the
works with great elegance and professionalism while handling questions from the audience and keeping in contact
through an earpiece with her boss sitting at the end of the
room. I decided I had to capture her attention and then
try to approach her during the coffee break. I kept my eyes
on her constantly and obviously she noticed. Later during
a break I walked up to her and exchanged the small talk
necessary to obtain her e-mail. On that occasion I did not
insist further.
After the conference and back in my office I wrote her
a few lines trying to be likeable but I never got an answer.
Exactly a year went by before I was to meet her again at
the same seminar. We bumped into each other in a corridor
inside the hotel housing the convention before it started.
As far as I am concerned I felt my heart swell.
But from the few words we exchanged I realized straight
away that I had not been the only one to think back to our
brief encounter a year before and to the email I had sent with
no reply. From that moment we never left each other again.
A few days later we went out for dinner together for the
first time. Stella lived in Milan, worked for Studio Ambrosetti, studied Political Science at Statale and shared an apartment with two young psychoanalysts. It was obvious to me
that she was a really good girl, bright and funny, who acted
on solid healthy principles. And I also found her extremely
pretty. On that first date we stayed up late and talked about
ourselves in some detail. At one point Stella told me she
wanted a family and children and I replied that I could not
promise her a standard marriage ratified by a certificate but
that we could talk about children. It was in that moment
that I decided she would become my second “wife”. Ten
91
love/1
years have gone by and luckily I am still as much in love as
I was that night.
Stellina is a wonderful person. She was born in China in
1971, but moved to Italy with her family when she was just
two. She always helped her family in its different ventures:
first in the leather goods industry in Bologna, where she
attended Primary and High School; then in the catering
business in restaurants in Como and Milan. She is a great
companion, very sensitive and generous. When she finally
became an Italian citizen in 2001, after waiting for so many
years, she cried, sincerely moved, as she swore loyalty to
our Constitution.
92
Love/2
Dear Marco, I am sorry to interrupt you. I listened to your words and
I can see you are a monument to simplicity, honesty and sincerity when
you talk about yourself, even when you talk about your love life…
So I think of my own and of my love for Bianca.
Let me just say I too know that swelling of the heart you mentioned. I remember it as if it were yesterday: it was summer 1979. I
was in the corridor of the Humanities building in Torino: I noticed
Bianca from a distance as she was trying to sell a magazine to people
entering the building. She looked stunning in a green short-sleeve
flared dress with a high bodice. In an instant I connected that moment of marvel to all the talking and the time we had spent together
in the previous months. How many times had we spoken, also on the
phone, about our work as student representatives, of the problems
on her degree course, or our studies and of the meetings we often both
attended…
I decided to declare my love. One evening we were coming back
from a walk with friends along the river Po at Valentino park, I
gathered my strength and told her about my feelings for her. But…
even before she replied a thought struck my mind: I imagined myself
(I don’t know how or why, or maybe I know all too well, it is because
I feared rejection) to be a fatally wounded animal on a hunt. I could
see myself fall, almost dead and hit the ground…
Marco… it did not go like that… Our story together officially
93
slowly please, i’m in a hurry
started a few days later but it was clear that the first steps had been
taken on that evening; it was 17 July.
Thirty years have gone by since then. What did I possibly do to conquer her? I am convinced it was destiny as you so often like to say…
You rascal! Look at what you are making me talk about with the
tales of your lovelife…
A few years went by before I thought about marrying her. Yes,
marry her with what you call the stencil formula. I wanted to stay
with her forever – I did not know how and what the consequences
would be. But the concept itself, “forever”, was quite clear to me. I
told her five years later in the beautiful church of San Domenico, in
Torino; it was 8 July 1984:
I promise to always be faithful to you,
in joy as well as in sorrow,
in sickness and in health
and to love you and honour you
every day for the rest of my life.
You know Marco, I worked out a number: to this day over 9000
of those days «of the rest of my life» have gone by. It is not that
many… but it is not that few either.
Our daughters arrived, first Ivana and then Barbara, and as time
goes by they seem more and more like a miracle to me, and not like
an inevitable and somewhat mechanical consequence! We have had
our share of troubles (with work, between us, our differences…).
Twenty-five years have gone by since that «yes I do» and thirty since
that swelling of the heart I told you about. And I am telling you all
this without feeling tired in the slightest. It is marvelous!
Have I kept my promises? Fate will tell me, Fate with a capital
f, when I will meet with him face to face since I have asked – and
always ask – Him to give me His strength and His freedom.
But if you and I keep on talking about women we could lose the
thread of our conversation…
94
Starting from scratch
Ok, let’s go back to the point we were before we started
talking about wives and marriages: back to the mid-80s,
at the beginning of the beautiful human and professional
adventure that made me an entrepreneur.
Daniela and I started from scratch. She took the first step
on 17 December 1984 when she started Mototaxi; I would
take the next step six months later by jumping into the Football Sport Merchandise venture. Mototaxi started off with a
street billboard campaign: a stylized, futuristic moped simply
saying «At last!» and then a big highlighted four-digit phone
number: 2602. A strategic choice: four-digit phone numbers
are used by big companies. And that is what we wanted to be
associated with in the minds of our customers. Fsm would
also have a four-digit number, the same 2617 which is now
BasicNet’s number, preceded by the prefix 011. We wanted
to communicate something simple but important. A modern
desk-to-desk parcel and envelope collection and delivery service was at last available in Torino.
The adverts worked, everyone caught on immediately
and a few hours after the first billboards went up the phone
(luckily!) began to ring. The campaign was very expensive
and if the business had not taken off we would have never
been able to pay for it.
95
slowly please, i’m in a hurry
The way Mototaxi started off was really great. There was
no money to furnish the garage that was to serve as an
office but Daniela and Mirella set it up with furniture and
above all desks that Vitale was throwing out of mct.
The biggest expense was with the only telephone company of the time, sip. At first Mototaxi could not afford to
buy a real switchboard, but had 20 phone lines installed,
necessary to handle everyday business and to get a fourdigit number, with twenty separate telephones. Daniela was
lucky in that sip also gave her twenty boxes full of phone
books, which were completely useless since the phone
lines could only receive calls. But those boxes came in very
handy to prop up some of the recycled desks that were
missing a leg.
Years later Daniela and I had an adorable discussion after I encouraged her to buy some new desks, since at that
point she could afford them, and she refused to do so on
the grounds that the old ones propped up by the phone
books were just fine!
Mototaxi needed a very simple organization, more or less,
that of a radio taxi firm. Customers phone in, the operator
enters their request with all the necessary details in a digital
interface which transfers it to the radio operator who calls
it out on the radio and assigns it to the messenger closest
to the collection address. Thing is, Mototaxi started operating without any of this. Daniela and Mirella started without
computers, radio link or a switchboard.
For the first three or four months messengers would
scatter around the city equipped with a bagful of phone
tokens and would keep in contact with the head office
from a phone box until they got a delivery. It was utter
madness: the two girls frantically answered customers’
calls and then started lifting up a phone after the other
asking the messengers where they were to optimize the
route. They carried on this way until they were sure that it
96
starting from scratch
could work. Only then did they start leasing all the necessary equipment and the business took off once and for all.
We had identified and satisfied a latent market need. To be
completely clear I just want to stress that in the mid-80s
there were no cellphones, internet or faxes.
Things were going well, we were gaining experience on
the job, and learning how to be entrepreneurs. Unfortunately, the new company and its partners were under
a sword of Damocles. It was enough to ruin everyone’s
sleep. We were accused of violating employment regulations because of our messengers. We had defined them
as occasional workers. Most of them were students who
found a way of supporting themselves and could always
decide by themselves whether to come in for work or
not; nobody could or wanted to force them into anything.
That is not what inps and Ispettorato del Lavoro thought
(Italian official bodies respectively in charge of state pension contributions and safeguarding workers, translator’s
note), and they expected us to offer full employment to all
of them.
Unbelievable but true. Because of all this a year later we
were notified with a fine for over 1 billion lire. A terrifying
sum considering that in one year Mototaxi had invoiced
600 million lire. Starting from scratch we had developed
what was beginning to look like a winning idea and we were
expecting our first child while a billionaire fine was looming over our heads with over one hundred criminal proceedings related to our workers. Not bad really.
In the meantime I had taken over at the helm of Football
Sport Merchandise. It had its share of problems too. Unlike Mototaxi, Football Sport Merchandise needed more
floating capital; before seeing a return we had to finance
the stock, put a catalogue together and distribute it, wait
for orders to come in, prepare them and send them out. It
97
slowly please, i’m in a hurry
was a rather long cycle so fsm had to resort to credit right
from the start.
At the time banks were closer to businesses on their territory, they knew small companies and their owners quite
well so at first it was not difficult for me and my partner
Antonino to secure a first loan of 50 million lire from the
director of the Rivarolo Canavese branch of Cassa di Risparmio di Torino. But after a few months that money was
not enough. We obtained a further twenty million from our
local San Paolo branch but they did not last long either.
The financial situation half way through 1985 was not
rosy at all: suppliers were quite tolerant but in September
we did not have the money to pay vat or wages. Although
we were owed a lot of money no one would give us any
more credit. The situation was desperate also because Luciano had not kept the accounts before my arrival at the
company.
Every day a new surprise would pop up: unregistered invoices found by chance in a drawer, duties missing from
the books and so on. Mototaxi had already received its superfine of over one billion and fsm was ready to file for
bankruptcy. There were a dozen employees in the company
but they had no specific roles. For example no one was
responsible for administration yet the company invoiced
almost a billion lire a year. At this point I was forced to take
the situation in hand.
Among the most mature and reliable people working
at fsm one was German and another came from a Jewish family. On these grounds I decided that the German,
who had studied languages, would be responsible for our
administration – Germans are famous for being punctual
and precise – while “the Jew” would be our Purchasing
Manager.
The situation was so bad that I had to resort to the savings me and Daniela had decided not to touch, which we
98
starting from scratch
used to survive. In any case they were not enough so I had
to ask my father for help. In this context I achieved my
first increase in capital: 100 million lire, of which 50 were
ours and 50 were on loan.
Yet, despite these circumstances we were untroubled and
I carried on thinking and dreaming big.
Now, dear Adriano, I have to make a digression or you
might think I’m a fool. My enthusiasm and imagination
were based on something quite factual which was difficult
to transmit to others but that for me was a certainty, a bit
like religious faith. In those years I had bought my first
personal computer, an Apple II, followed by a IIc and by
my first Macintosh.
At the time, and Daniela remembers it well, I spent entire
nights trying to understand that new world which, probably thanks to the aptitude for maths Brother Roberto had
discovered in me during my time in school, I found irresistibly fascinating.
During those nights I began to imagine the extraordinary
opportunities that it would provide to business men who
would manage to integrate its latest evolution within their
companies. At the time Internet did not exist yet but you
could already imagine many of the revolutionary applications that would have been possible with pcs and so-called
micro-software dedicated to specific company procedures.
That is what my optimism was based on, and it still is today. Here is an example: the first mail order catalogues fsm
produced for the fan bases of big clubs, a bit like any colour
magazine, would cost approximately 1 million a page just
to design, not including the cost of paper and printing. It
was a huge amount which massively raised the company’s
point of balance and limited our capacity for offer because
we could not afford many issues.
I was sure that with the new machines and software which
99
slowly please, i’m in a hurry
would soon be available the cost of a layout before printing
would fall to approximately 50.000 lire by doing it inside
the company itself. And that is what happened a few years
later and it allowed us to establish ourselves on the specialized mail order market.
In 1985 I started to invest what I was earning in software
for my companies already imagining a fast reliable and flexible company, managed in real time without paper, which
is exactly what BasicNet is. I would already think to myself:
«If I can pull off something like that, why shouldn’t it go
well? I will surely be more competitive than others and the
company will grow». Today, Adriano, on any website belonging to our group there is a little caption at the bottom
of each page saying: «Copyright © 1985-2009 BasicNet
S.p.A. All Rights Reserved». The same 1985 we are talking
about, and many of the software we still use every day, for
example to process online orders, were written exactly at a
time when we could have suddenly been forced to file for
bankruptcy. Beyond what people may have thought that
was the solid and substantial reason for my optimism, even
in the most difficult moments: the power of it, the reliability of data management procedures that if well planned
would enable me to speed up and improve the efficiency of
my company, boosting its growth, profit margins and ability to compete. That was it, and it still is today.
Our offices were ugly and mine was particularly so. Before Luciano and I moved in it had been a fuel warehouse
and years later it still smelled rather bad. When it rained
hard water would pour in, flooding the place but I did not
care. I actually loved it. It is during those years that I began
to value the word “basic”, that later became fundamental
in my life and in all my enterprises. Quality and efficiency
without unnecessary frills.
On 10 December 1985 a journalist came to see us for
the first time looking for a Juventus shirt to give to his son
100
starting from scratch
for Christmas. The following day la Repubblica published a
whole page dedicated to our company. It is interesting to
read the opening now.
From la Repubblica, 11 December 1985:
We are in Torino, via Bologna. (…) Lots of
nondescript hangars marked with numbers.
No. 70 is home to Football Sport Merchandise.
A room full of very tidy shelves; half a dozen
young people work here, rock music fills the air,
in a corner offices and a number of ibm terminals. Fsm is a young company with a joint stock
worth 99 million lire, balance certified by Price
Waterhouse, at the helm young entrepreneurs.
(…) Marco Boglione, former Marketing Director of the Kappa group, is its President and
Managing Director. He looks like a Savoy yuppie, talks about “up to date” (in English in the
original, translator’s note) and of “entrepreneurial
feeling” (…).
101
The first strategic partner… and we’re off !
Despite my enthusiasm and the interest the company was
also raising in the media, the balance in 1985 was negative.
Back from yet another trip to the States to see what was
new I once again turned to Gianluigi Gabetti for advice. I
had a precise idea of the company I wanted to develop, I
would build it later with BasicNet, but at that point I was
in serious financial difficulty. I told him I needed a strategic
industrial partner to obtain the credibility and trust from
the banks I could no longer elicit with my own resources.
I asked him to help me secure two meetings I thought
might help me improve the situation. One with Rinascente, where, being a large distribution company, I could offer my experience in specialized mail order sales, and the
other with Silvio Berlusconi, because he could potentially
be interested in mail order sales via television. What is currently known as Media Shopping. At first Gabetti, as usual,
encouraged me to keep going and then he kindly set up for
me two very important meetings: the first with Berlusconi
who was not into politics yet but was an extraordinary
entrepreneur who I wildly admired; the second with Nicolò Nefri, the powerful Managing Director of Gruppo
Rinascente.
The meeting with Berlusconi, set for 12 January 1986,
102
slowly please, i’m in a hurry
was cancelled by his secretary at the last minute because
of issues related to the launch of La Cinq in France. The
second took place in piazza Carlo Erba 6, Milan. I still do
not know and never will whether it was to please Gabetti
or because of an actual interest on his behalf, but my meeting with Nefri lasted a lot longer than expected. Finally he
asked me: «What would you like us to do for you and how
much money do you need?». «No money – I said – I would
just like Rinascente to become my partner.» He replied: «If
I agreed would you be willing to definitively cancel your
meeting with Berlusconi?». I enthusiastically said yes. «Then
it’s a deal; discuss it with Garbolino» Nefri concluded. Ezio
Garbolino was the Groups’ Financial Director.
Thus Rinascente became Football Sport Merchandise’s
partner with a 20% share and a capital increase reserved
to it, on an overall evaluation of the company, of approximately one and a half billion lire. On that occasion we
also changed from Srl to SpA (the equivalent of Ltd to
Plc, translator’s note). Fsm could not yet offer guarantees but
within a month its overall credit with Italian banks went
from 120 million lire to over a billion.
The partnership with Rinascente would be indispensable
for the growth of fsm over the following years.
From 1986 to 1990 we changed headquarters three times.
Our business grew and reached a turnover of approximately 12 billion lire and had 20 employees. Football Sport
Merchandise now had a big partner and a grand dream to
realize.
At the time we had an open business policy. Thanks to
the software and the equipment we had developed to produce merchandising catalogues for football fans we decided to try and sell other kinds of products with the same
method. We established MusiKa Srl, a specialized catalogue
for music lovers that looked like a good niche in the mar-
103
the first strategic partner… and we’re off!
ket but was a total flop. Although for different reasons the
same happened with Moda Mail Srl, an attempt to sell yarn
to all the women who did knitting along with diy kits for
making designer clothes. Inside the parcel along with the
yarn and the instructions to make the sweater there also
was an original designer label. We contacted Missoni and
Versace but they did not believe in the project and refused
permission to use their brands. I realized that without great
designer labels there was no hope of succeeding and this
enterprise did not last long.
We also took a shot at a catalogue of high quality handmade food products, Villa d’Agliè Srl. There is an interesting story to this venture because it certainly was the most
disastrous I have ever undertaken: we printed over 20.000
catalogues and for the first time in my life I let myself be
talked into buying mailing lists. After all the costs incurred
in printing and sending them out we got two, yes, two orders! For a few years we made Christmas gift packs for a
few companies belonging to acquaintances and then closed
down.
Not happy with one bad experience in the food business I opened Caviar Service Srl: we wanted to sell caviar,
lobsters and American steaks. Customers had to order the
goods by phone and would receive them within 24 hours. It
did not last long ma on the up side I found some excellent
wholesalers of these delicious foods that I have kept and
still use when organizing luxurious and succulent dinners
with my closest friends.
We even sold for Fabbri Editori a collection of booklets
on the life of the Pope to be paid in instalments.
We had already bought our first as/400, an innovative ibm
machine that could work as a relational database even if it
was a compact system. The first applications we wrote for
that machine gave us a feeling of omnipotence so I nonchalantly entered into any kind of commercial venture.
104
slowly please, i’m in a hurry
Another business I set up with Daniela and a dear friend
of ours who was into bicycles and triathlon was pats Srl
(Prodotti ad Alta Tecnologia per lo Sport – High-Tech Products for Sport). One day in 1988 I walked past a bike shop
in Soho and was struck by what I saw in the window. It was
a mountain bike, a virtually unknown object in Italy, but it
had a very special feature: it was made in aluminium and
the frame’s tubes were huge compared to those on traditional bicycles. I went in and got the phone number of the
manufacturer in Connecticut, Cannondale. I put off my
departure and the following day I went to see them. It was
a fantastic company housed in a former old train station,
established and run by a very special character: Joe Montgomery, a typical American who looked like he belonged
to a Ralph Lauren catalogue, fifty years old, handsome and
charming; during his life he had worked as a small commercial airplane pilot, as an estate agent in Bahamas, as a
banker and had finally decided to build the bicycle of the
future. Joe listened to me immediately, probably that was
all he was waiting for, and the following day I left for Italy
with a mandate as the exclusive importer for my country
of that weird and innovative bicycle named after a small
abandoned rail station in Connecticut.
That product enjoyed sensational success: the first container of bicycles we imported was sold in the bat of an
eyelid. We immediately organized a national sales network
made up of strapping 30-something sports enthusiasts
with a special interest in bicycles. We also purchased distribution rights for other emerging brands, the product
of Californian creativity and of Silicon Valley technologies of those years, which would later become famous
like Giro helmets and the revolutionary GripShift system.
Pats gave us a lot of satisfaction. In 1993 we sold to Cannondale the business we had developed in Italy with their
products, they established their European headquarters in
105
the first strategic partner… and we’re off!
Holland, and Daniela and I left the company passing on
to the other partners the honour and the onus of carrying
on the business.
In the meantime we continued to develop our original
enterprise selling football shirts and accessories with the
clubs’ logos. We still sold via mail order but we had already
opened our first Fan’s Shop and were getting ready to open
twenty of them on the grounds of the new Stadio delle
Alpi that was to be finished in time for Italia 90. In 1988
we had also opened BasicMerchandise Srl – the first company with a “basic” in its name – to produce the football
t-shirts, tops and hats we already sold, manufactured by
others, with our own brand: basic.
The world cup was just around the corner and an exuberant company called Football Sport Merchandise could not
keep away from it. We worked on two ideas, both quite
good I have to say, that also yielded good results, one of
them excellent.
The first was obtaining an exclusive license for manufacturing the Cup’s mascot in all its three-dimensional representations: any kind of soft toy and figurine. Luca di Montezemolo, who was the organization’s director, gave me the
go-ahead and tapped me for a substantial guaranteed minimum on the contract, but the operation was a success and
quite profitable too.
The other idea looked less profitable on paper but was a
must for us given that we dealt in all the best Football Clubs’
merchandise. We had decided to produce a catalogue with
all the official merchandise of the national teams that were
coming to Italy to play. In order to do this we had previously
contacted all the most important federations and my friend
Domenico Sindico, future attorney, who had recently left a
prestigious studio in Torino specialized in brands and patents to basically work full time on our projects, had literally
106
slowly please, i’m in a hurry
travelled the globe visiting them and securing their authorization. The catalogue was to be called The Fan’s Supermarket:
the cover design was ready and we were just about to go to
print when suddenly Oscar Massari, the owner of a communications and licensing agency who had already worked
with Ferrero in the previous World Cup in Mexico, gave me
an idea. Ferrero had been looking to acquire the right to
promote its excellent products throughout 1990 using the
symbol of the World Cup, becoming one of its sponsors,
but they were beaten on the finishing line by Barilla who
through a partnership with the American Mars Corporation
had been able to offer more money.
Therefore Ferrero had presented the advertisers with
a great challenge: finding an effective alternative idea to
sponsorship, a kind of plan B. There was very little time.
I thought about it a lot and one night, during a weekend
in the mountains, I had a great idea: we would hand over
to this giant of the food industry our Fan’s Supermarket;
instead of selling our products we would ask consumers to
collect stamps off Ferrero’s product packaging and send
them to us instead of money. The result was a colossal
operation.
In the first run Ferrero printed eight million catalogues
instead of the 70.000 we had envisaged. The products with
the stamps to exchange for the Italian, Brazilian or Argentinian shirt literally sold out in supermarkets. And that is
how Ferrero managed for the first time to overtake its rival from Emilia in bakery products thanks to the shopping
stamp collection of the century which was called «Vinci
Campione» (lit. «Win Champion», translator’s note). It was a
very intense collaboration but very profitable too. Ferrero
relied on us for many other issues related to the huge logistics machine activated by over one million Italian families that completed the collection and received the chosen
prize. Other two operations followed that first one in the
107
the first strategic partner… and we’re off!
following years, one offering sweatshirts from the most
prestigious American universities and the other products
with the logos of Italian Serie A football teams.
It looked like everything was starting to work out. We had
also become distributors for the American firm Starter that
produced those shiny jackets with the names of American
teams that were highly fashionable among young consumers at the time. The company’s accounts had much improved and we were about to close the year’s accounts with
a considerable profit margin for the first time: something
around one billion lire.
108
A nasty surprise
One sunny day I was on the motorway to Milan heading
for Linate Airport to fly to Moscow when I received an unpleasant phone call from Renate Hendelmeier, our company secretary who had in the meantime effectively become
the real head of the company. Early that morning we had
received a visit from the Work Inspectorate and the Police.
They had stopped all activity, sealed wardrobes and drawers and were questioning all our employees. We could not
understand what was going on.
Once I got back from the ussr, where I had been forced
to go as I could not cancel my meeting, I realized things
were quite serious. I met the inspector, a decent chap forced
by his position to fully follow bureaucratic guidelines. He
told me the situation was grim; he realized there had been
no malicious intent on our behalf and that we had not tried
to cheat anyone, including the State, but that unfortunately
he would have to issue us with a fine that according to his
calculations would be colossal. He asked me if I knew anyone that could get to the Inspectorate’s top spheres and I
obviously replied I did not. This is what we were guilty of:
over the years we had taken on about thirty people through
a Training Contract. On those occasions I interviewed the
candidate and if I decided to take him on Renate asked Re-
109
slowly please, i’m in a hurry
gione Piemonte for the contract concession. Although Regione Piemonte was prompt enough, it took a few weeks, a
month at most, for the authorization to be issued. During
this time we quite naively asked the person in question to
start work and paid them for the time previous to receiving
the authorization as if they were self-employed, deducting
in advance the appropriate tax.
Everything was thus apparently legal and in order. Unfortunately among the clauses to the Training Contract there
was one stating that there could have been no working relationship between the employer and the resource previous to
the start of the contract. Thus all the Training contracts we
had issued to employ our collaborators, many of whom had
gone on to permanent contracts, had to be considered null
and consequently all the tax evasion and fines, that had considerably increased over the years had to be worked out.
The inspector seemed to be sincerely sorry but according
to him he could do nothing to help us avoid the worst; at one
stage during one of our interviews he looked at me straight
in the eye and hinting at our new, fresh, bright open-space
office said to me: «But Boglione, a lad like yourself, with
such a nice company, couldn’t you pay these people under
the table for the few days before the contract was valid?». I
turned it into a joke: «When I grow up, if I become Prime
Minister, I don’t want to have any skeletons in my closet!
Unfortunately we are so stupid in this company that we do
not pay cash». In any case the fine amounted to over one
billion and a half lire. Uncanny.
In the first two years after the World Cup I carried on
opening new business lines. We entered into a joint venture with Swingster Inc. Kansas City, a much bigger company than our own, to develop the kind of promotional
activities for large companies that we had started dealing
in thanks to Ferrero, as well as other enterprises including
opening the first Western-style supermarket in Kazakh-
110
a nasty surprise
stan and a heli-skiing business for tourists on that country’s mountains.
Rinascente, our partner, did not want to hear about appealing and suing inps over the heavy and unfair fine
looming on the company, something we were doing for
Mototaxi; the initial enthusiasm for our partnership was
rapidly cooling off. Salvation came through a measure by
the government of the time, the possibility of applying for
one of its many remission schemes that helped us limit the
damage which still amounted to a total of 900 million lire.
All the profit made in those happy times dissolved but at
least we bought back our freedom.
On the other hand the market conditions so that we
could carry on renewing licenses with Italy’s biggest football teams had changed a lot. The big sports companies,
Nike at the forefront, had raised their interest in football
sponsorship and offered the clubs a lot of money but expected exclusive rights. Unlike what was happening in the
States, as time went by our business would be wiped out
because of the direct intervention of the big companies.
Our partner had also grown tired of our company and if
that was not enough the final balance for 1993, that I had
assured Rinascente’s Managing Director would definitely
be positive, was actually a disaster because of the unexpected bankruptcy of a big Greek customer and a couple
of other unforeseen events.
When I had a look at the books with Renate at the beginning of January 1994 I had to face facts. There was no
way out. Losses were high, our debts amounted to over
two billion lire and we would have to immediately recapitalize the company, something our main partner would never
agree to do. I looked around for potential investors but I
realized it was not an option. At the time I also met Alessandro Benetton who was then very young and setting up
his company, 21 Investimenti. It was an interesting meeting
111
slowly please, i’m in a hurry
with a young man who had just returned from the States,
tired but very lucid, quite focused on what I was telling him
and, unlike others, very sincere.
«You don’t have much time – he said – and I don’t want
to make you waste any. We are not interested in investing
but thanks for telling me about it.»
It really looked like we would not be bouncing back:
goodbye dreams of glory, goodbye to all the dreams of a
young man who wanted to be an entrepreneur. Maybe my
family was right…
When it was looking like the end a historical turning point
was reached. On 14 January 1994 Maglificio Calzificio Torinese was declared bankrupt. Seven years after Vitale had
passed away the family business he had loved so much had
followed him.
112
PART V
An amazing adventure
“Mission impossible”
I was told Maglificio Calzificio Torinese had gone bankrupt
by Aldo Berta, a former colleague who worked there (and
still works with me today). I was in a car and I could not
believe my ears. It was the most incredible thing I could
imagine. But I remember that even before I put the phone
down I was already mulling over the mad idea of buying up
that big company, me with my little firm which at the time
was in the red, full of debts and had a partner who could
not wait to leave.
I had already entertained the idea of buying Maglificio
Calzificio Torinese. It was known that the company was
not doing well, and I had also talked about it with Moreno
Martini, a lawyer married to a close friend of mine who had
briefly dealt with the file for a well known merchant bank
based in Torino. But the company’s whole set of problems
and debts made it a “mission impossible” at least for me, as
I already had loads of problems.
I remember that shortly before Christmas 1993 one late
afternoon me and Moreno agreed to drop the idea: we exchanged our Christmas wishes and parted saying that we
could resume talks if mct went bankrupt, which is exactly
what happened less than a month later.
The strategy was crystal clear to me. My small, young
114
slowly please, i’m in a hurry
and computerized company, who had been struggling to
survive and expand for years, only needed one thing. No,
Adriano, I’m not talking about money, or at least not just
about money: it needed its own brand. The business model
was: a company based on a network of entrepreneurs we
supplied with all the necessary services to deal in our brands
on their territory, giving them a license for production and
distribution. It was quite clear to me and my closest collaborators, but it would not work on the medium and long
term if the brands we had belonged to others who could
at any time drop us. On the contrary if we could rely on
established brands such as Kappa and Robe di Kappa our
proceeds would grow to the point that we would be able
to stop dealing in “anything and everything” to survive and
concentrate exclusively on our core business which was
“making t-shirts”.
The first person I called after talking to Berta was Daniela who, being quite pragmatic, after a few moments of
silence just said: «It was inevitable…». She had immediately understood what I was thinking from the tone of
my voice and suddenly, like she often does, started raging
against me, predicting loads of trouble if I were to get
caught up in that mess. She said in so many words that it
had «already lead Maurizio to an early grave». She tried up
to the last minute to get me to promise I would drop the
idea and I only managed to put the phone down when I
got home.
I then called my friend Motoo Hagiwara, director of
Phenix Co. who had been distributing Kappa in Japan for
ten years with great success. Before going bankrupt, mct
invoiced about 80 billion lire in Europe, and Phenix, sold
Kappa products for almost 200 billion just in Japan. I had
known Hagiwara well since my days at mct with Vitale and
at the beginning of the 90s he had also become a distribu-
115
“mission impossible”
tor for my BasicMerchandise. He was aghast at the news:
he really had a lot to lose.
During the weekend I got in touch with Moreno and
talked the thing over with Carlo Pavesio, a very close friend
of mine and highly valued lawyer, the man who more than
anyone had shared, supported and defended my ideas over
the last 20 years.
Carlo knew everything about the situation at fsm and
could not see how we could step in given that the company
was already in serious financial trouble by itself. Moreno,
on the other hand, did not know much about mct’s bankruptcy or about my company’s situation.
I also discussed the issue with Paolo Pellizzari, a third
degree cousin on my mother’s side who had introduced me
to William Fung, my partner to start manufacturing BasicMerchandise products in China.
Early on Monday morning I called Berta and asked him to
find me the trustee in bankruptcy’s phone number. A little
while later I was sat at my desk staring at a phone number
and going over what I would say to this man I had never
met. That time, unlike others when you know what you want
to say but do not know how, I did not even know what I
wanted to say. I decided to call him anyway and tell him the
truth: that I did not know how but I would like to try and acquire mct’s brands. That is exactly how it went: it was a very
short phone call. The trustee was called Enrico Stasi, and
had been described by Moreno, who had met him in other
circumstances, as a tough, surly type, so I was not particularly impressed by our conversation. He just said that it was
too early to start any negotiation: the company had just gone
bankrupt and he had just been appointed. He told me to call
him after a week. I tried to introduce myself but he ended
the call with an offish: «I know who you are». I could not tell
him anything; the only thing I clumsily managed to mumble
was that I hoped I had been the first to express an interest.
116
Take Over Kappa
Behind my office in via Padova, there was a little caretaker’s
flat that we had renovated and set up as a guest room for
visiting fsm business contacts.
On the same Monday afternoon I summoned my generals. Carlo Pavesio, Moreno Martini, Aldo Berta and Roberta Alberghini former mct, plus my trusty collaborators
of the time Renate Hendelmeier and William Carelli, with
the young and promising new employee Paola Bruschi.
We decided to kit those rooms out as the project’s headquarters (our bunker!) and the first thing I did I gave it a
name. Our new crazy adventure would be called tok, which
stands for Take Over Kappa. No one knew how to do it yet
but we wanted to buy Kappa.
Everyone took on a specific task. Berta and Alberghini
would find the last available data on the company’s sales and
organize a meeting with the most important reps in the area
for me. We decided that Moreno would be our lawyer and
handle our relationship with the receivership and that Carlo
would work with me on the corporate and financial part
of the operation. Carelli would think of how to implement
our small but ultra-modern and efficient data management
system to handle a much bigger company. Renate would
keep an eye on the figures. Paoletta would serve as a secre-
117
slowly please, i’m in a hurry
tary and support our little task force’s communications. The
first palpable result of that project was that a few days later
Carlo had a litter of cats and he called the first one Tok.
Apart from that nothing extraordinary happened in the first
week. In the meanwhile the second call to the trustee was
getting closer. On paper the situation was really desperate.
Fsm urgently needed an injection of capital of at least 1.3
billion lire or it would go bankrupt. Rinascente, who had recently bought Antonino’s share too, wanted out and was not
at all favourably disposed. Also our new potential partner in
China did not know about our operating loss.
On Thursday morning we came to a turning point; Motoo Hagiwara called me from Tokyo and told me he wanted
to come to Torino as soon as possible to find out more and
asked me for support. During the weekend William Fung
let me know through Paolo Pellizzari that he was sorry
about the losses at fsm and the consequent failure of our
first joint venture but that he thought my idea of trying
to acquire the Kappa brand very interesting to realize our
plan on a larger scale.
I was quite encouraged by that attitude.
I realized that at Phenix they were literally panicking at
the thought that the Kappa brand could be bought by a
large corporation and that they would lose exclusive distribution rights for Japan.
At first I thought they wanted to use me as a foothold to
purchase Kappa themselves. But I very soon realized that
they were very uncomfortable about considering business
and investments outside Japan. I realized they wanted just
one thing; and I can say that it was exactly on the ability to
satisfy their wish that I effectively built my future.
I talked about it with Carlo, Moreno and the other bunker
mates: everyone liked the idea right away. At first it seemed
like absolute madness: why would the Japanese pay for the
118
take over kappa
brand just for Japan the same amount we would have to pay
for the same brand worldwide? The reason was obvious to
me: Phenix did not want to run any risks on its territory,
it was very wealthy and knew perfectly well that someone
had to take care of Kappa outside Japan and it was much
better if it was a small, easily controlled company like ours
than one of their weightier competitors. They were also
quite aware of the political, bureaucratic and union-related
problems of our country and consequently did not want to
know about operating here.
As agreed I called Stasi for the second time on Monday
morning. My aim was clear: meet him as soon as possible
and expound my plan. He gave me an appointment for a
few days later; in the meanwhile I had written to Hagiwara’s
boss, the great president Tajima (obviously known as Tajima San!) a letter that would go down in history.
It was a very brief letter and I am still very proud of its
subject. A bit like I am of my photographic business in
boarding school or the ungrammatical ad published in La
Stampa to sell German Shepherds posing as a German: a
little trick of sensitivity.
After much thought I had decided against writing on the
subject heading something like «Kappa Purchase», «tok –
Take Over Kappa» or something of the sort, technical and
professional and just wrote «Zero Risk Opportunity».
What I was really keen to communicate was that they
would not be running any risks! I also thought that the
word «zero» would be very important for the Japanese, and
that they would be impressed by its use in the first line of
such a delicate letter.
I think that is how it went. In the letter I said: if you help
me buy Kappa I commit to selling you the brand for Japan
forever at a pre-arranged price! No trouble due to the mess
that mct had made around the world, to its workers living
off redundancy funds and all the rest.
119
slowly please, i’m in a hurry
But I needed a final financial guarantee from them to
purchase the assets from the courts. The Japanese would
lay out the money only when the brand was transferred.
They replied they were very interested in the idea and
Hagiwara immediately jumped back on a plane.
120
Take-off
I first sat down in front of Stasi at 6 pm of a Monday afternoon. I told him a bit about me and stressed the fact that I
had a powerful Japanese group backing me.
He was very polite but did not dwell much on what I was
telling him. At one point he took the floor and after making
me understand that he knew perfectly well who I was and
the kind of relationship I had had in the past with mct, he
told me it was a very complex operation and quite taxing
for the buyer. It would all have to go through the official receiver and be approved by the unions. As if to say: «Watch
it lad, this ain’t no game». He added that he had already
commissioned the necessary surveys to estimate the value
of the company’s assets but he already knew that most of
it was in the brands. He also told me that to safeguard that
value he would at first look for an entrepreneur to rent the
bankrupt company, providing continuity to the business
and its marketing investments. Later he would put assets
up for auction. Whoever would rent the company had to
commit to taking part in the auction with a minimum offer
to be agreed previously.
At the time it seemed an extremely complicated procedure, but I obviously pretended to understand it perfectly
and acted as if I was equipped to act as required. As I was
121
slowly please, i’m in a hurry
leaving I dropped a line on the fact that having been the
first to express an interest I ought to get a little bonus in
case some competitors turned up.
Stasi’s reply reminded me of those by Brother Roberto
in boarding school and felt like a blow to the stomach: «I
never said you were the first».
Me and my big mouth! Maybe I had annoyed him.
Mulling over the meeting I became convinced that the
operation Stasi had described was tailor made for me.
Within a couple of weeks I would have to recapitalize
fsm, convince Rinascente to fork out more money instead
of dropping out, convince our potential partner in China
to support the new project and negotiate the terms of the
financial agreement with the Japanese, as well as putting together a credible 3-year business plan for the Italian banks
that would have to provide a second guarantee on top of
the Japanese guarantee. As if that were not enough I also
wanted to be the first to get in touch with the unions.
A time started that in retrospect I can say was fantastic,
with moments of great drama but a lot of fun too.
It was then that I started sleeping at the office at times.
The first obstacle was Rinascente. I got in touch with Ezio
Garbolino who dealt with us and also sat on the board at
fsm. We decided to meet late afternoon the following day. I
drove to Milan with Carlo Pavesio; Massimo Boidi, a friend
and company business consultant met up with us there.
The meeting got off to a difficult start. The first news was
that the last financial year’s balance was a lot worse than we
expected. Thereby a recapitalization was needed. Secondly,
I tried to convince Garbolino and his assistant that our
future looked rosy because in the meantime mct had gone
bankrupt and I had thought of buying it up. As I spoke
Garbolino became more and more somber and his state of
growing alarm was obvious to us all. When I had finished
122
take-off
a deep silence reigned for a few seconds, which seemed
never-ending to me and during which Rinascente’s Chief
Financial Officer looked for an adequate reply. I could see
him trying but in the end he could not find anything better
to do than stare at me in the eyes and say: «Boglione, you
are insane».
Frankly he took me by surprise and my first instinct was
to burst out laughing but luckily before I could utter a
sound Carlo had already taken the floor and was busy defending me.
«Sir, “insane” is a bit much!» and off he was with an address
paying tribute to my honesty and entrepreneurial spirit.
The meeting did not end well. Garbolino said he would
inform the Group’s Managing Director at once and that he
would not be happy about things.
Carlo and I left the Rinascente building in Segrate
around 7 pm with our tail between our legs. We were rather pensively walking towards the outdoor car park when
Carlo snapped me out of my grief crying out: «Isn’t that
your car?».
As a matter of fact a young man, clearly from Eastern
Europe and wearing a black leather jacket, was at the wheel
of my virtually new fiat Croma 2.0 Turbo, driving off after
having just stolen it. It was the icing on the cake.
We got back to Torino in a taxi under a snowstorm. Halfway through the journey I learned that my eight-year-old son
Lorenzo, who had gone to the mountains with my brother
Chicco because I was late and Daniela was working in South
America, was alone in the woods under the snow: the snowmobile that was to take him to Monti della Luna could not
reach him because of heavy snowfalls and it was getting dark.
As I was trying to handle that emergency, trying to contact
all those who could give me information or help Lorenzo,
the battery on my cellphone went dead near Novara.
The following hour’s journey home lasted a lifetime.
123
slowly please, i’m in a hurry
In the following days we tried to come up with a way to
find money to recapitalize fsm. It was not simple but I got
a loan from a bank by using the house Daniela and I had
moved to in the meantime: it had been bought for us by
our respective families and was in our name. I also managed to convince my family (mother, father and brothers)
to put together the 500 million I still needed. Obviously
they would hand over the money only if the operation with
the Japanese went through. Otherwise no one would have
to recapitalize fsm.
At the end of the week I had managed to get together
60% of the resources needed to carry on but we were still
waiting for Rinascente’s decision, who had to guarantee its
part, 40%, peanuts to a giant like them. A negative decision
would be a tragedy for us; first of all we would not be able
to find the money we needed; secondly if such an important and established partner were to leave it would send out
a really bad signal to all those involved, and surely put the
word «end» to all our plans.
On the Friday night before the meeting with Stasi scheduled for the following Wednesday we got a concise fax from
Rinascente’s legal department: they had no intention of balancing the losses and agreeing to the small recapitalization
we needed. We were back at square one.
Pavesio did not take it well and immediately hit back
officially reminding Rinascente that its attitude, although
perfectly legal, would deeply and disproportionately damage fsm, inevitably driving it to bankruptcy; and all because
they would not contribute a small amount at such a crucial
moment.
We tried to contact Rinascente’s Managing Director,
Giuseppe Tramontana directly, as it appeared he had vetoed the operation in person, but Garbolino and his secretary put up a united front and we failed.
The only thing left to do was to write an angry letter.
124
take-off
At that point we would not go down quietly. If we were
to go bankrupt and because of such an arrogant and irresponsible decision, we would vent our anger and look for
compensation for the huge damage we would suffer, which
could on the other hand, easily be avoided. As if to say:
careful, you have decided to pull out but watch it, if we go
bankrupt because of this decision we will do our best to
get back at you for years to come.
The letter was very well written, yet it seemed very harsh
to me and I was quite worried about that giant’s reaction.
Pavesio, on the contrary was untroubled and very determined, and just as he often does at critical moments of
our ventures he just spoke the magic words – «It’s all under
control!» – and carried on.
The letter arrived Monday morning at 7 as a recorded
delivery. At 5 pm on the same day Carlo was summoned to
Milan to draw up the terms for recapitalization.
Events speeded up during the following week. I attended
the first meetings with mct’s union representatives who
joined the cause although with some wariness. Many employees registered with the unions and many at the rsa had
worked with me a few years earlier so they trusted me; this
played a crucial part.
I had also met with Stasi again, who told me the surveys’
results and the minimum price I would have to guarantee
to acquire brands, real estate and warehouses. The total was
21 billion lire.
125
Banzai!
Phenix representatives arrived in Torino and one day later
Hagiwara and I shook hands in the kitchen of our tok bunker: 22 billion for the brands in Japan, Taiwan and Hong
Kong. That’s right, one billion more than what I needed to
buy everything up.
We signed a binding agreement to be confirmed by a
credit letter worth 22 billion to be given to Italian banks as
a guarantee. The letters were punctual and had been issued
by Sumitomo Bank, a huge Japanese corporation that at the
time was the biggest bank in the world.
It seemed the wind was finally blowing from behind. Stasi
also took me to the courts to expound my industrial plan
to the official receiver, Vittoria Nosengo, and the meeting
went well. I had the impression that Nosengo was intrigued
by Stasi’s project to attempt the operation with someone
like me, financially weak, but quite bold as an entrepreneur.
Nosengo just expressed some doubts regarding my ability
to handle such large amounts of money, but Stasi already
knew about the Sumitomo letters and he reassured her.
After a few endless meetings with the unions I reached an
agreement with them: I would initially take on only 37 people but I gave my word that I would do everything I could
to give jobs to all 213 who were on redundancy funds. They
126
slowly please, i’m in a hurry
trusted me and left it up to me to set up criteria for calling
people back.
We had finally taken off.
At this stage everyone at fsm had been working for almost
a month on integrating mct. We had decided to give it a
try regardless of what the probabilities of success were.
I told my men: «Let’s pretend the acquisition has already
gone through. If something goes wrong we will just chuck
it all out. But if it goes well, the day following a signed
agreement we will be ready to take over the firm and save
autumn ’94, which is paramount to balance the books».
We knew perfectly well that even if we found all the
money to pay the receiver, we would have no additional resources to invest in our relaunch campaign. We could only
rely on our earnings. Usually autumn and winter collections are presented between November and December of
the previous year but that year mct had skipped the event.
Also, because of the bankruptcy, it had not even managed
to deliver all of its summer orders. Our products risked
being off the shelves for a whole year. A true disaster for
the brands. We worked eighteen-hour days without a break
and we were obviously neglecting almost all of fsm’s usual
business.
One day we all realized together that if the acquisition
did not go through we would not stand a chance of avoiding bankruptcy. We were destroying what little was left of
our company hoping we would succeed in our “mission
impossible”. In this case too, we had nonchalantly gone
beyond the point of no return.
After meeting the official receiver and signing an agreement with the unions we felt a bit relieved thanks to a credit
letter from the biggest bank in the world. We successfully
finished our plan for balancing fsm’s losses, which in the
end also included Rinascente, and we were waiting for an
127
banzai!
answer from one of the Italian banks we had asked to issue
a guarantee for the court based on Sumitomo’s guarantee.
On paper it was a simple and risk-free operation.
One morning the day started off quite badly. The previous evening the credit committee of a large and well known
Torino bank, the first we had approached with our operation, sent us a negative verdict: the operation was too risky.
We thought we had not described the terms of the issue
well enough, but Carlo, after looking into the bank’s reasons in depth, explained to me: «Although we have planned
it so that it will all happen concurrently at the same notary’s,
between the moment we transfer the money for the acquisition to the courts and the moment we collect the price for
relinquishing brand rights to the Japanese a small lapse of
time will intercur; maybe, if it has all been organized well
enough, it will boil down to a few seconds».
According to the bank during that very short period of
time I could go mad, die or whatever. In any case because
of that brief interval I was not reliable for that amount of
money.
I could not believe it. How could that be possible? I
thought they were having me on. We tried with other credit
institutes and turned to a few renowned Torino professionals for an opinion but that was the way things were.
The banks would not go along with it. A few years later
a “little bird“ told me about a conversation he had heard
during a board meeting with another bank based in Torino
we had approached for help. Beyond the predictable and
ridiculous formal reply which was formulated immediately
afterwards, one of the members commented that I was getting bigheaded and it would be better if I kept my feet on
the ground. To emphasize his point he added that he had
learned that I had said I wanted to buy mct to build the biggest company operating in the field in the world (which was
actually true). A few people burst out laughing but in any
128
slowly please, i’m in a hurry
case they all agreed: I was getting too big for my shoes and
it would only be for my own good if I gave up in time.
Unbelievable. «Why on earth – I thought – if a little boy
says he wants to play in First Division, win the League,
the Champion’s League and a Golden Football he receives
praise and if a “boy” of 37 with almost fifteen years of
honourable career behind him says he wants to become a
world business champion people think he is bigheaded?»
After a few days I decided to inform Stasi. We did not all
agree on this move. There were concerns he would grow
suspicious and that to avoid risks he would choose another
candidate for the lease, and there was more than one at that
stage, and all flush with cash.
I had behaved with complete transparency right from the
start and I believed that Stasi would appreciate that. In any
case I knew I had nothing up my sleeve and that I would
manage to succeed only if everyone wanted me to do so,
starting from the receiver.
Stasi immediately saw the unquestionable legal aspect of
the issue; what the banks were saying was technically sound
but the fact that it was a radical stand, put forward to avoid
giving a different explanation, was not lost on him. I got
the impression Stasi was quite annoyed, not because I had
done something wrong but because he understood that the
operation he, the official receiver, the unions and all the
former mct employees on redundancy money believed in,
was not what the Italian banks had in mind. He told me
that if we could not come up with a solution right away, he
would have to resort to a Plan B.
There was very little time but he would immediately inform the official receiver, hoping she would not take it too
badly, given that my financial reliability had been her only
reservation right from the start.
Late afternoon the following day I went to see Stasi in
his office. «I spoke with the official receiver. There could
129
banzai!
be a legal way out. After obtaining an authorization from
the president of the bankruptcy court in person, we could
replace the guarantee application for the entire bid, 21 billion lire, with a smaller guarantee by putting down a deposit.» He told me that if on the day of the auction, to be
held approximately six months later, I could not produce
a guarantee for the entire 21 billion, I would lose the deposit: «Think about it, talk to your family and try to work
out how much you can put together to guarantee a deposit;
but remember that it cannot be far from half of the total
value».
It was all really complicated! Everything seemed to go to
pieces in front of my very eyes. I talked about it with Carlo
and Moreno who were already busy writing the gigantic
contract for the receivership. The only thing to do was to
talk about it at home right away.
It still seems madness to me now, as it did then: we had a
watertight guarantee for 22 billion to sell someone a small
part of something much bigger which we would pay only
21, and we were stuck. It was the beginning of a frantic
week. My father and brothers understood that by now it
would be madness to pull out. For once I realized that even
my father was annoyed with the banks that were treating
me unfairly. If we had stopped there, it would have meant
disaster. We would not be able to balance fsm’s losses and
as a consequence Daniela and I would also lose the house
we were living in.
A few days later, after obtaining the necessary signatures
from my family and Daniela, Banca Brignone was ready to
issue a guarantee for the deposit. An insurmountable limit
was set at 11 billion. But there still were reservations about
something which I also fully shared. Besides that money fsm
would need further funds, not many, but at least 4 billion to
use as working capital to start the company rolling the day
after the deal was signed. Our budget for 1994 predicted
130
slowly please, i’m in a hurry
sales for approximately 40 billion lire and that amount of
floating capital was just about enough. We could not hope
to get that money from the commercial banks that had already rejected our plan. We needed a business bank ready
to invest in fsm’s capital.
The day following our deal with Banca Brignone Judge
Nosengo, Stasi and I, without any lawyers, were received by
Corradini, who was the president of the bankruptcy court:
a tall quiet man with kind eyes. He was perfectly aware of
the facts but pretended he knew nothing. Nosengo summed
up the situation and at that point Corradini turned to me:
«Have we made a bit of a mess of things?». Not bad as a
preamble! Actually, he said that with a benign smile. I took
it in my stride and opened my arms as if to say «Sorry!»
and I started to explain how I would relaunch the company,
that I was the best person to give it a try and that I would
surely be successful because I had the unions and the workers on my side. He interrupted me almost immediately: «So,
how much money have you put together? Can you pull it
off with a 12 billion deposit?».
I knew I could count on 11 and thought: «It’s done!».
The atmosphere was laid back and relaxed so I started
an understated but firm negotiation. I told him my family
would provide 4 billion, my wife would stake 1 billion and
that I would mortgage my house (which, to be honest, was
already mortgaged) and that I could get to a maximum of
6 billion.
«Good – said Corradini – find a further 2 billion and it’s
a deal.»
«Ok – I replied – in that case it’s a deal.»
«Are you sure you can come up with the money?»
«I’ll find it Mr. Chairman, I’ll find it!»
131
The final charge
I flew down the court’s staircase: I had to talk to Pavesio
and all the others immediately. I still had to solve the floating capital issue and find a partner who would invest some
money in fsm, since Rinascente did not want to hear about
it. I visited a few business banks but no one was interested.
Terms were excellent but to no avail! Time was fleeting
and even Li&Fung (William Fung’s company), who wanted
to be a part of it, had let me know that without an Italian
investor our deal would not come through.
Towards the end of April 1994 I left the offices of one
of these institutes in via Turati, Milan. After the latest «no».
As I walked towards via Manzoni I called my brother Francesco. I told him I could not find anyone and that I did
not know where to turn. Francesco gave me a piece of
advice that turned out to be decisive – «Try talking to Enrico Minoli» – and gave me his phone number. I called him
and he knew what I was trying to do because it had been
reported in the papers. «Where are you?» he asked. I replied
I was in Milan. His answer was, as usual, quite matter-offact: «Come to see me and tell me all about it». I asked for
his address and he said «via Manzoni 40». I looked around:
I was standing in front of it! I climbed the stairs and a
couple of minutes after calling Francesco, I was sat in front
132
slowly please, i’m in a hurry
of Enrico who was asking me if I wanted some coffee. I
must have looked rather tired and anyway, I did nothing to
hide it.
Enrico is our cousin. He had also been at Villa Nina,
among the many cousins of different ages there, and I had
been one of the youngest. The Minoli brothers always were
our favourite cousins. There were a lot of them and there
was one to match the age of each of us brothers. Francesco had Giovanni, but also Enrico because they were close;
Chicco had Lorenzo and Francesco, more or less his age;
and I was very close to Chiara, the only girl of six children;
a great girl who was forced, just like me, to defend herself
from her older brothers.
The last time I had seen Enrico I must have been about
ten and we were roller-skating in the garage of our house
in San Vito, which opened on to a half-empty room where
Grandpa Edo built his models: it was the «model-train
room». To make our pastime more interesting we started
skating through the door between the two rooms. We went
faster and faster and at one stage someone suggested we
try it in the dark. My friend Walter and I, the youngest of
the bunch, were very excited at the idea of breaching the
rules and had no idea of what was about to happen. The
“elders” had planned a terrible practical joke at the expense
of our naive minds. Once we had reached the appropriate speed in complete darkness someone would close the
door. And it was I who, as I skated at full throttle, saw a
bolt of yellow lightning and could not understand what
had happened. The bang was amazingly loud and everyone
was scared to death. For a few moments I was stunned and
then I burst into desperate tears calling for my Mum, «la
signorina», or anyone who could free me from that nightmare. If I had climbed the stairs in that state they would
have been done for; so they started consoling me trying to
133
the final charge
convince me that I had to behave as a grown-up, and that
grown-ups do not cry and bullshit of the sort.
After a while I let them talk me into it and stopped crying but it was obviously not enough for them. They wanted
me to swear that I would not spy on them and that I would
tell Mother that I had fallen over by myself. I reckon they
pitched their case with me very well on the spot: I walked
up the stairs convinced it was all under wraps. I told myself: «You’re old enough now, don’t spill the beans», but as
soon as I bumped into «la signorina» in the hall she started
wailing. One of my eyes was as big as a tennis ball. And
I had also bled from the nose and spilled loads of tears
which I had wiped with my hands. So it looked like somebody had cut my throat: I was a blood-mask. Someone
took care of me and the others headed for the garage to
punish whoever was responsible without even asking me
what had happened. Of course the “elders” thought I had
spilled the beans and started blaming each other for what
had happened. Luckily that time they were all appropriately
lectured.
Although it probably was not true, the family had assumed
that it had been the Minoli kids’ idea and that it had been
Enrico who had closed the door. After that I had only fleetingly seen him on another occasion and I was now sitting
in front of him with his assistant beside me, a beautiful
girl but plainly dressed. I was obviously very worried and
shaken because I only realized a month later how charming
Sara was.
I knew that over the years Enrico had made a name for
himself and at home it was rumoured that he was very
wealthy. In the 80s he had set up his own Merger and Acquisition company and had sold it to an important bank. In
any case I entered his office thinking he was just a business
consultant.
134
slowly please, i’m in a hurry
Although I was there I did not really know why. Enrico
was very kind so I started telling him about my life, more
or less starting from the incident in the garage. It was an
interesting tale and it could become even better. But I told
him that I felt I was stuck. I told him about the issue of
those few blasted seconds, and that I could not get any
more money from our investors. And that even my Chinese
partner would soon be dumping me.
It was almost lunch time. Enrico asked me: «Do you want
to have a sandwich here?». I obviously replied affirmatively.
«Do you have any documentation on this mess?» I pulled
out the folder I had just taken to the bank that had sent me
packing. Enrico started reading the file which was quite extensive and complete. I knew it off by heart and I noticed
that he stopped to consider what he was reading.
He went over it for an hour without uttering a word. I
was relaxing a little. I was facing the first person reading my
project throughout.
When he had finished reading Enrico asked me to clarify
a few issues, especially pertaining to the value of giving out
brand concessions to Japan. He thought the price was too
low. No one had ever told me something like that; I could
not get a billion and a half worth of capital, imagine 23.5!
I told him it was all I needed to close the deal, that it was
probably a profitable deal for the Japanese and that it was
for me. So he said to me: «So what do you need to carry it
through?».
«I need someone – I replied – who will guarantee for a
few seconds 21 billion when we go to auction; and who can
afford to pour into fsm a billion and a half immediately.»
With William Fung’s two and a half coming in to top
what we had already poured in, fsm would have a net capital
of 4 billion, enough to undertake the venture.
At that point Enrico thought about it a while and then
said: «If I give you 1.5 billion will you give me a 15% share
135
the final charge
in the company and give me exclusive negotiation rights to
purchase Rinascente’s share? We can then think of the 21billion-issue together».
«Of course» I replied.
The proposal was totally to his advantage but on the other hand risks were high and I had no other alternative – and
he knew that all right – but it was not a bad deal for me
either. I would have gone for a lot less.
I was aware of what that kind of situation would entail
so I asked him how much time and further information
he needed to confirm the offer. He replied: «What confirmation?!? We have to start tomorrow morning». I insisted:
«Don’t you want to carry out due diligence on the data I
just gave you?». «There’s no time left. If you lied, it will be
your problem!»
Enrico then told me that besides his work as a business
consultant he had set up a small merchant banking outfit, Turnaround Srl, to manage part of his personal estate
through venture capital operations; those figures were small
for him, so he did not have to ask anyone or think about it
too much.
When I left his office I was happy but a bit puzzled. I
called Pavesio, who I had spoken to before the meeting,
and told him about it. We were both lost for words, and a
little doubtful. We thought it would be great but after all the
disappointments we had recently endured, we agreed not
to count on it too much and to wait for events to unfold.
Although usually sceptical about on-the-spot decisions that
have not been thought through properly, that time Carlo
tried to see the positive side: «In any case at least we have
found someone who openly likes the operation».
While I was trying to sort out the finance with Pavesio
and everyone at fsm was working as if we had already signed
the deal with the receiver, Moreno was busy writing up the
contract. It was quite complicated: the final draft including
136
slowly please, i’m in a hurry
addenda, was over 600 pages long. We had agreed with the
receiver that we would sign on 30 April. After the deal with
the president of the bankruptcy court I had no longer kept
Stasi informed about the problems I was facing in finding
the final necessary funds. So although Minoli had immediately sprung into action on the evening of 29 April we still
did not have all the agreements and collateral documents
we needed to sign the contract with some peace of mind.
That evening Carlo and I were at Moreno’s with a few
friends. After dinner we retired to a small room to exchange
the latest news and make the last decisions. There was no
time left. If we did not sign on the following day we would
probably miss our chance. Carlo summarized the situation
and suggested I sign only after receiving the last formal
confirmations from everyone which would mean having to
ask Stasi to extend the deadline. That time Moreno was not
so technical: «If you don’t sign that contract, I’ll kill you».
It was more of a romantic stand than a professional one
but quite understandable. In the end even Carlo agreed we
had to run the risk.
The following day, at 8 pm, Stasi and I, both exhausted,
finished signing three copies of the 600-odd pages long
contract. It was a deal.
137
Taking over the factory
At precisely 8,30 am on 2 May 1994 I entered mct’s building as the temporary owner (having signed a lease for the
company) and having officially received the keys from the
receiver, although we still did not know how to trace funds
for the 21 billion guarantee to be able to take part in the
auction without losing our deposit.
I had decided to use the entrance in via Foggia 42. We
had the keys to the main entrance in corso Brescia 86, but
as a precaution I wanted to cross that threshold only after a successful auction. I knew the building intimately not
only because I had worked there in Vitale’s days but also
because during negotiations I had visited it a few times to
find out what was still there in terms of machines and raw
materials, and to check on the state of the building itself.
Besides Carlo Pavesio and Moreno Martini, all the other
professionals working on the operation were there. There
were also union representatives, a few current colleagues,
some former colleagues and Stasi. Enrico could not be
there, but on the plus side my parents were. Dad had never
been enthusiastic about the enterprise because he thought
there was a high risk of failure, but in the end he allowed
himself to be involved and did not abandon me, putting at
stake a significant chunk of the family estate.
138
slowly please, i’m in a hurry
We opened the big metal shutter sealing off the entrance, among the cheers of those present celebrating that
first difficult victory, and started on a recognition tour of
the plant.
The setting was depressing to say the least, almost a postwar atmosphere. Everything was frozen, it was all lifeless,
exactly the way the receiver had found it on Friday 14 January when he had turned up to seal the place.
It was quite surreal, as if the world had suddenly stopped:
everything was covered in dust; the looms were half-way
through a job; on the cutting benches there were half-cut
pieces of fabric; there were half-processed bundles everywhere. To me it was like an enchanted forest.
Half way through the tour, on the second floor there
were huge rolls of fabric piled on the floor. At one point
as I was describing what we were seeing I noticed that my
father was slowly slumping on those rolls while my mother
tried to support him, to soften the fall.
We all ran over. Dad had fainted like a man realizing he
has a huge problem. Fortunately it only lasted a few seconds. As soon as he came to, still lying down, he succinctly
told Mum the reason why he had fainted: «He’ll never make
it!». He was obviously referring to me.
Mum tried to soothe him: «Everything’s fine, it’s just a bit
of a mess… And anyway, what a thing to say, ‘he’ll never
make it’…».
Dad was scared by the future and his nature was to seek
protection from problems. Mum was never scared by the
future.
There was a lot of work to do. We had to get the wheels
turning. A truly epic time started.
As agreed with the unions, during the first 2 weeks I interviewed most of the 213 former employees on redundancy money. They all turned up apart from a dozen.
Twenty minutes each assisted by two colleagues, plus five
139
taking over the factory
minutes to register a brief comment on the resource. It was
a real endurance test, but it was paramount to appropriately
choose the first posts to be filled and plan the employment
of all the others, which we actually managed to pull off.
We worked like mad; we were joined by an extra 37 colleagues from mct and fsm’s staff had more than doubled.
We had to think of everything: sample books, sales network, manufacturers, it infrastructure, administration,
contracts and sponsors. And above all we had to find the
way to obtain a guarantee for 21 billion from an Italian
bank before the auction was held in the fall.
140
The Stendhal syndrome
Dear Adriano, now I have to take a step backwards. Because
although as soon as I had heard about mct going bankrupt
I had thought of buying it, even if I did not know how, at
this stage I was extremely clear about the project.
I had always imagined an ideal company as a network,
operating in the field I had actually been working in for so
many years: basically made up of two kinds of entrepreneurs: manufacturers and wholesalers. A number of businesses worldwide, manufacturing and selling products with
the brands we would provide with legal rights and all the
services necessary to enable them to do so. This was the
concept I had had in mind for a number of years and the
opportunity to acquire such prestigious brands was exactly
what I needed to give it a go.
But until mid-February of that year my project was still
lacking something. I was thinking of an aggressive and innovative use of the it technology already available at the
time, of pcs and the first servers centralizing ibm’s as/400
system. With a little imagination I could envisage the outline of a system managing a complex, widespread network
like the one we had in mind, but still could not solve the
issue of real time connection between the different platforms. There were many different protocols, every large
141
slowly please, i’m in a hurry
company had its own system and they were all very expensive and owned by someone.
Wednesday 9 February 1994, between 4 and 5 pm, something very important happened in the boardroom in via
Padova, influencing everything that has happened to date.
Paola Bruschi was not married yet, and worked as William Carelli’s assistant, who was my it man.
William had been head of edp (Electronic Data Processing, translator’s note) at mct and when I had gone solo he
had decided to come with me. He came from a “classical”
background, mainframes and ibm. Although he was not an
expert he had also felt an attraction for the potential of
the new micro-systems. We had written lots of software
together; fsm and Mototaxi were both ran thanks to him.
He already spoke of «object-oriented programming» and
«client servers» then.
Paola was a lot younger and had just graduated in Economy with top marks and a thesis on it applications to improve company procedures. And she was already very ambitious, which is a good thing.
Carelli, despite being indisputably an authority in the subject, was at the time rather sceptical about the reliability of
new technologies. And I could not fault him for it.
Anyway, that afternoon William was not with us in the
basement. But there were a couple of recent graduates, one
in Physics and one in Maths, friends of Paola’s, who could
not care less about ibm and mainframes. They already had a
pc on, working with Windows 3.1, connected to a modem;
Paola wanted me to see something special she thought
could make a difference to us.
The guys opened a little program called Navigator that
helped to connect and move on the Network. I still did not
get it.
After a couple of attempts they managed to connect to a
server at Polytechnic. After a string of beeps, old modems
142
the stendhal syndrome
a few years ago used to chirp for a while before establishing a connection, I noticed that in the main window of that
program meant for “navigation”, another small window
had opened up displaying scrolling lines of text and numbers on a black background. The window closed shortly afterwards but the display made it clear, without any graphic
embellishment, that we were connected to the athenaeum.
I thought: «Interesting, but what’s new?». We had already
been connecting to our warehouses and distributors in the
u.s. and Japan in the same way for a while. So that was no
news.
One of the guys keyed in a short string of digits and
pressed enter. For about 30 seconds the screen went blank
and then, as if by magic, a new window appeared inside it
saying: «Hallo!», and it was not us who had typed it. We exchanged a few sentences with some 15-year-old American
youth who had seen us online.
I was intrigued; they explained that our pc and the computer used by the American kid were in that moment connected via modem to a network provider which was in our
case housed in the Polytechnic. Every provider was connected to another and all together they formed a network
through which it was possible to navigate connecting any
pc as long as it was connected to a provider. Thanks to a
little network-traffic-management program we found out
that in that instance our conversation with the American
kid had gone through South Africa!
I realized what Paola’s point was: it was the data transmission network we needed to make today’s BasicNet come to
life. At this point I had to find out where the catch was. I
was told that Network users would only pay to connect to
a provider and after that it was all for free. I was already
aware then that nothing comes for free but I could not see
the catch. I thought there had to be someone who owned
the data transmission protocol and that they would thus
143
slowly please, i’m in a hurry
make a profit by selling us the software. They told me the
protocol was public domain and there was no owner. I then
thought it would be extremely difficult to integrate it in the
different it systems we were using.
So Stefano, the Physics graduate, Paola’s husband-to-be,
reopened the black window I had seen when they started
Navigator: «Look, this is the protocol. It was developed by
the u.s. military but they made it available to the public». I
felt slightly nauseous and then I felt a fire starting up inside
me. Maybe I had had an episode of Stendhal syndrome due
to something which was not art but that I had exceedingly
appreciated. We were talking about Internet!
I had already heard about Internet a few years before and
towards the end of 1993 I had read an article on Il Resto del
Carlino that said there already were approximately 20 million computers connected worldwide. But until then I had
not realized what use we could make of it.
From then on the vision was clear and complete, maybe
not for everybody, but it surely was to a significant number
of young graduates connected, for different reasons, to my
business who shared my fascination for it.
So I, Paola, and a few other colleagues who had been
drooling for months at the thought of being able to purchase mct, thought we may realize our vision, knowing we
would be able to exploit such a powerful tool before anyone else. It had always been our problem: being able to rely
on a global, efficient network with a cost compatible with
our stature. Internet was exactly what we needed to start
our venture without the feeling we lacked something.
And this was happening in February, right in the middle
of our ups and downs trying to get a lease on mct, and
without being able to share our excitement with any of our
financial contacts who were, at the time, light years from
that kind of issue.
144
The foundations of our new enterprise
But let us get back to the epic time when we restarted old
mct, after it was paralyzed for a few months by bankruptcy.
A lot of things happened during that time. I spent a lot
of time travelling to get to know mct’s former sales network but, above all, to try and kick-start the production
process and somehow save the winter season.
We were also still trying to find a guarantee for the auction to be held in the fall. We went back to all the banks
but to no avail. In the end we put together 21 billion thanks
to Enrico Minoli who decided to guarantee out of his personal funds the 10 billion we still needed. To hone the
operation we turned to an important Swiss bank. Around
2 pm, after complicated procedures with notaries, lawyers
and bankers, we were asked if we wanted a snack from the
bank’s own catering service. We thought: «Why not?». It is
funny to admit that after all that complicated affair carried
out over almost six months, the thing that struck me most
was the bill I received for some light refreshment: 15.000
Swiss francs, more or less 250 euros for a sandwich! I obviously asked them if they had lost their minds but I was told
it was all perfectly normal. I still thought that something
was wrong and that I would never understand that scene.
We had struck an important deal involving loads of money
145
slowly please, i’m in a hurry
but how on earth a sandwich could cost half a million lire
I could not, and still cannot, understand!
While we waited for the auction we were busy laying
down the foundations for our future. We were planning
the group’s new international corporate structure, with the
aim of organizing a network of entrepreneurs that would
operate worldwide, with the same products and the same
mission.
We presented our project to mct’s old distribution network to convince them to work as entrepreneurs instead of
sales reps; to become Basic Network licensees.
The model of today’s business was already there: we
would design and realize collections and we would take
care of their industrialization through selected trading
companies.
License holders would buy finished products directly
from the manufacturers paying the trading companies a
commission and a royalty to us later, once the product had
been sold to a retailer on their territory. In everyone’s interest we would spend part of those royalties in advertising.
I thought that by offering a real and factual opportunity of becoming entrepreneurs, instead of selling t-shirts
around the world, we would quickly internationalize the
Kappa brand, our first aim. It was all to be done without
money obviously, or rather, by getting others to lay it out
in advance.
I was often told that globalizing a company was something that required huge amounts of resources and a lot
of time. I would listen but I still thought that it would
have been true only if I wanted to directly sell my t-shirts
worldwide, not if I could just find sixty entrepreneurs on
the planet who would have exclusive rights to operate with
my products on their territory. I was convinced that if our
plan was really as good as I thought, we would get global
coverage for our products within a couple of years. On the
146
the foundations of our new enterprise
other hand if our business model was faulty we would immediately become aware of it.
To be sure that the model would work right from the
start, since at the time our sample books were basically
non-existent, I decided to stake everything on large sponsorships. Juventus, which we had managed to hold on to
with some difficulty, and fc Barcelona. I thought that with
those shirts license holders would be able to contact any
sports shop in the world and that is exactly what happened.
What retailer dealing in sports and football could claim he
was not interested in the product?
On the weekend of 30 July 1994 we had summoned what
was left of mct’s international sales network to Sestriere for
our first convention. I drove there on Friday afternoon; I
remember it was one of the last times I drove somewhere
for work. After we solved the issue concerning our guarantee for the court, my associates had demanded that the
company take out a huge insurance claim on my life with
them as the beneficiaries. Since most of them knew from
personal experience how I drove a car, the board had insisted I drive as little as possible and never for work reasons. At the time I was always lost in thought and not at all
naturally inclined to drive slowly, so… I now think it was a
very wise decision!
But on that day I still drove, and with me there was Pere
Matamales, one of Kappa Spagna’s three partners. Pere
was my age, Antonio Oliveres and Juan Barros were a little
older but they were all equally enthusiastic about my plan.
We saw a lot of each other, and I also discussed strategic
issues with them, especially with Pere.
It was a beautiful sunny day, there was not much traffic
as it was lunch time and my old 1974 Porsche Carrera 2.7,
recently fitted with a new engine, gave its best. It was a very
pleasant drive.
Pere was not afraid and the view was fantastic. We talk-
147
slowly please, i’m in a hurry
ed about the many things we had to do and at one stage
we started wondering whether we had taken on too much.
Pere really was a great guy, a certified Catalan, he always
had a joke, a line and above all a proverb or a saying on the
tip of his tongue. To play things down he said: «In a case
like this we say in Catalonia that one must carry on without
pause but without haste». Never stop but without rushing.
I thought it was a good saying but we were in a hurry to
carry out all those plans. We carried on our discussion for a
while but then Matamales insisted: «When you do things in
a hurry you risk making mistakes and then you have to start
over and lose time you cannot afford. If you are in a real
hurry you have to do things slowly; otherwise you might
have to do them again, and that way you lose time».
It was the best advice anyone could give me at that moment. What more could I do than work all the time trying
to avoid mistakes as much as possible?
After a long silence Pere said in his almost perfect Italian
and very strong Spanish accent: «Slowly please, I’m in a
hurry. That’s the way to do it!». I told Pere he was a genius
and that he had given me a great idea.
The meeting with the sales force went beautifully and by
the end we already had ten license holders.
In the meantime we had started a massive sale of mct’s
stock using the old store in via Foggia, inside the factory; it
was yielding extraordinary and unexpected results. But the
real objective was to get products bearing our brands on
shop shelves in the autumn. Immediately after the meeting
in Sestriere, I left with Monica Adami for a worldwide tour
to do some production shopping. We also flew to Mauritius
where an important group of clothes manufacturers had
decided to give us credit without bank guarantees. It was
an unforgettable experience for me, and I believe it was for
Monica as well. In the space of 48 hours, resting on the
148
the foundations of our new enterprise
whole for just 8 hours, we placed orders for a total of over
5 billion lire. We would hole up in the sample rooms with
a merchandiser and start choosing designs, weight, colours,
labelling and above all the price of a collection that would
go into production without us even seeing a prototype,
hoping we would receive the goods in Italy before the end
of August and be able to sell them between September and
December.
Monica was great, extremely precise and always very calm.
On that trip we must have said to each other «slowly please,
I’m in a hurry» at least 200 times. And it worked a treat.
With those goods and thanks to the credit those companies had given us, mainly due to the enthusiastic presentations Renato Catalfamo gave us, a great man and a good
friend, honorary consul for Mauritius in Italy, we managed
to save our first commercial season.
Between the sale at the store, quick sales and the first
royalties from our license holders, we closed the books in
1994 with a fantastic success. At the end of the year fsm
had invoiced 46 billion with a net profit of approximately 8
billion lire. Not bad considering where we had started.
At the time we were also aided by growing support for us.
Everyone was amazed and had started helping us.
Everything was going the right way. As a precaution, in
case of a possible raise in the purchase of mct, I began to
think about what I could do with the building. We decided
to sell it only if it turned out to be necessary to sustain a
raise at the auction, otherwise we would later look for a way
to stay there. I thought it was very important for our plan.
149
The auction
With all this effort and hope in the background we quickly
got to 28 October, the date set by the court to hold the auction to award Maglificio Calzificio Torinese SpA’s assets.
We had the famous 21 billion, but thanks to the excellent work carried out we had at least another 5 between
our profits and the value of the property that had already
attracted a few (ridiculously low) offers, in case we needed
extra funds. At precisely 9 am I entered the bankruptcy
court in corso Valdocco. The auction was public and anyone could take part. A lot of people turned up: colleagues,
union representatives, relatives, professionals and a few
friends. Minoli and Hagiwara were also there. The judge
was amazed at how many people turned up.
As soon as I entered the room where the auction was to
be held my heart sank. There was not just my gang in there.
A well-dressed distinguished man was leaning on the wall
on the right side of the room. It was Gianni Lico, managing director of a well known company operating in the
field who during the months of negotiation and the lease
contract had more than once expressed the intention of
attending the auction and steal mct from us thanks to his
huge wealth.
Many people already knew him so in a flash everyone
150
slowly please, i’m in a hurry
learned who he was and why he was there. And this contributed to making me nervous.
I was very wound up. Before the proceedings started we
had to wait half an hour and it felt like an eternity. Everyone
was trying to tell me something and I could barely talk. I
could not remember anything, I tried to think how I should
behave at each raise. I thought the time had come. If “they”
had turned up for the auction they would not let the deal
be taken from them for a few bob. I knew I had some extra
funds but I also knew that they were peanuts if compared
to what they could rely on. Yes, I was very worried. So was
Pavesio but he kept repeating: «It’s all under control, let’s
see how things go…». Moreno was very pale and I think he
was as terrified as I was: he did not speak much either.
The auction started; a little later the official receiver asked
me if I confirmed a minimum offer of 21 billion. Not in
so many words, it was the end of a longer speech peppered with bureaucratic terms. I did not understand the
question at first so I answered only after I was nudged by
Carlo; Nosengo and Stasi had realized how perturbed I was
because I saw them exchanging a quick smile. The receiver
then asked if anyone wished to raise the offer. After the
prescribed amount of time had passed Vittoria Nosengo
looked at me and said: «In that case it is yours».
At that point I heard a loud buzz in my ears: I thought the
room was very noisy but I realized it was not the case only
when people started clapping their hands. I was taken over
by emotion and when Stasi asked me: «Well, then aren’t you
going to say anything?», I just made a silly wave with my
left hand to say that it would be better if I did not. If I had
opened my mouth and released my frozen jaw I would have
most certainly burst into tears before I could utter a word.
Our competitor had turned up but had not raised the
stakes. A few years later at a sports goods fair in Germany
Lico told me he had come to pay tribute to our courage. He
151
the auction
too would have liked to close that operation but his partners had not backed him. As if to say: «The only reason you
won is because I could not compete; well done anyway».
Someone took some pictures, Mirella Ansaloni did some
filming, and everybody came over to me, joking or congratulating me. So we started to leave the courtroom. As soon
as I was outside I left the group and called Daniela.
Daniela had not come to the auction and this in itself was
a strange thing given our relationship.
I had started sleeping in the caretaker’s flat a few months
before. Because of the different time zones I often had
to have long conversations on the phone or discuss documents with the Japanese in the middle of the night. Since I
had started working on acquiring mct Daniela had become
quite defensive. We were right in the middle of our sevenyear crisis; for the good of our relationship we should have
cut off all external distractions and concentrated exclusively on each other. But on the contrary I had decided to work
even harder and even started sleeping at the office. Daniela
was worried, and probably rightly so, that my absent-mindedness and absence from home, which already upset her
enough, would just get worse.
At the time I realized things were not good between us
but I was hoping for a miracle. I called her hoping that
miracle was about to happen. I told her: «We won the auction, it’s amazing, mct is ours». From Daniela’s first word I
knew that what was happening was the exact opposite of
what I had hoped for. There was to be no quiet after the
storm, no chance to start over…
She said: «I’m really happy for you. Now you’ve got what
you wanted so you can drop buy to pick up your suitcases,
they’re ready. I didn’t tell you before because I didn’t want
to create further problems before the auction».
Our married life ended there and then, at 11.30 am on 28
October 1994.
152
PART VI
An endless battle
Corso Brescia 86
So I officially and definitively moved into the caretaker’s
flat where I stayed a little over a year before moving into
one of mct’s production departments converted into a spacious office with a small apartment.
At precisely 8 pm on 7 November 1994, to the sound of a
cheering crowd we opened mct’s main gate in corso Brescia
86. We gave a big party inside the factory.
At the end of December we signed the notary act so
starting on 1 January 1995, we became the owners of all
that was left of mct, including the famous Kappa, Robe di
Kappa and Jesus Jeans brands.
We had taken off!
I spent the first six months of the new year travelling
around the world looking for license holders and manufacturers. Things were going really well. Work increased in
intensity every day but in autumn something completely
unexpected happened.
Enrico Minoli came to see me; I had seen him or spoken
to him every day for the last year or so. In the months running up to the acquisition and in the following I had done
extraordinary work with him. He was determined and confident and helped me a lot. I think it was a great time for
154
slowly please, i’m in a hurry
him too. But that time he announced his visit differently: «I
want to talk to you about something», but he did not want
to go into detail and handled my curiosity with a concise:
«I’ll tell you in person».
The following morning he was in my office and after our
usual warm greetings he gave me his business card. I asked
him if he had lost his mind. «Have a look at what it says underneath my name» he replied. I looked and saw the words
«Merchant Banker». I said: «Merchant Banker». There was a
brief silence like when someone has finished telling a joke
and no one gets it. He insisted: «Merchant Banker». I still
did not get it and I thought Enrico was mocking me.
He said: «You really don’t understand?».
I said: «No, I don’t, cut it out!».
At that point Enrico, defeated by my ignorance, played
his last card before giving up on his act.
«Do you know what merchant bankers do, you animal?»
«I don’t give a shit about what merchant bankers do, you
jerk! Tell me why you’re wasting my time.»
Enrico could not believe I did not get what he was trying to say and we both burst out laughing: we should have
filmed it. He said: «Merchant bankers buy up companies».
«I know» I replied.
«In that case you will also know that merchant bankers
don’t buy companies to make them their family business,
but to sell them on!»
All of a sudden I got the message! There was nothing left
to laugh about. Enrico carried on: «I didn’t look for anyone
but I have received a very interesting offer. If you want to
carry on find someone to buy me out otherwise we’re selling. No one can afford to miss such an opportunity».
I really was not expecting this: Enrico was very understanding but told me there was little time. A large British
group had made a good offer, 60 billion lire! They were
just interested in the brands and at the time our company
155
corso brescia 86
was very small, did not employ many people and had just
successfully balanced its books getting rid of all liabilities.
It truly was a unique opportunity.
Although it must be said that pocketing 30 billion at 39
would have been quite amazing, it was the thing I was the
least interested in at the time. I could not consider the possibility also because I felt it would mean betraying all the
people involved in the venture.
The turnaround operation we had carried out had been
quite brilliant and maybe we could find at that stage an investor to buy Enrico’s shares. The first thing I thought of
was calling not a business banker but a great entrepreneur.
Shortly after my meeting with Minoli, and after giving
Pavesio the news, I called Benetton’s secretary and asked to
speak with Mr. Luciano.
156
Deflecting the attack
I have known Luciano Benetton since I was working as
a very young man for Maurizio Vitale and they were on
friendly terms. I first met him in February 1979 during a
visit to Treviso with Vitale. I was 22. We had recently become sponsors for Juventus and I had prepared an official
Juventus bag for Mr. Luciano, full of all the new Kappa
wear. It was rumoured that he was a Juventus supporter.
Since then I had met him a few times in airports around
Italy and on holiday with Vitale in Sardinia.
For someone like me, just starting out in the «rag trade»,
like he called it, meeting him was a bit like having a vision of Our Lady. In 1994 someone told me that as soon
as mct went bust, a Torino banker had consulted him to
know whether he was interested in the company. Apparently Benetton replied that it was not necessary to go far
to find the best man to buy mct in those conditions. He
reckoned he was already in Torino: a smart lad who knew
the company and its business well and would also be highly
motivated. He was talking about me!
That statement filled me with pride so in January 1995,
shortly after the auction, I asked for an appointment and
went to see him to thank him and tell him about my plans.
I have never denied that BasicNet’s business model was
157
slowly please, i’m in a hurry
strongly inspired by the Benetton experience. Benetton is a
network of entrepreneurs as well, a kind of franchising. I
wanted to do the same thing not at a retail level but wholesale: not store owners but license holders. Benetton listened to me carefully then said the idea was good although
not new but there was a danger license holders might be
“undisciplined” affecting results on the long term. I replied that the danger was quite real but that we could avoid
the problem thanks to the new technologies, that is, if we
could build the company we had in mind: paper-free, fast,
punctual, and reliable with all the data available in real time.
Benetton said that was true only in theory; I insisted that
thanks to Internet it could also work in practice. His final
comment was: «Intriguing».
So it was that a year later I called him again.
With Mr. Luciano pleasantries on the phone are short
lived. «How’s it going?» he asked. «Very well, so well in
fact that a British company has put up an offer and my
associates want to take it up.» «I thought that might happen, but what do you want to do?» «Naturally I want to
carry on, I have barely started.» «Talk to Alessandro then,
he has 21 Investimenti, maybe he can replace your associates». Great!
I immediately called Alessandro who as I have already
said, I had met a couple of years before and who had by
chance recently had a chat with my brother Francesco.
Events unfolded very quickly. In December 1995, Alessandro and his father came to Torino to see where we
were at. A few days later Alessandro told me on the phone
he was ready to go forward with the idea. He told me he
wanted a share equal to mine and that he would not interfere in running the company. I accepted and we agreed on
all the other points with extreme ease. On 9 May 1996, the
day of my fortieth birthday, all the biggest Italian newspapers gave the news of Benetton’s entry great importance.
158
deflecting the attack
La Stampa headlined: «The Persuaders!». Obviously they
were referring to Alessandro and I.
It was exactly what I needed. A new exciting season in the
life of my Basic began: 21 Investimenti and I controlled
42% of it each, William Fung 12% and the rest was held by
my brothers and by Fenera SpA, an investment firm owned
by friends in Torino who had bought some shares to support me when Minoli had become a partner.
I wondered if I was safe from any further surprises for
a while…
159
Congratulations, mamma Dani!
In the meantime Daniela and Mirella’s Mototaxi had continued to operate and had grown quite impressively despite
the Damocle’s sword represented by the billionaire fine we
had continued to fight with all our might with a long string
of lawsuits, assisted by the great Milan barrister Giuseppe
Trifirò, but we had lost first and second degree rulings.
Fortunately, also thanks to an inspired closing address by
Trifirò, we were fully acquitted by the court of appeal.
Thanks to that ruling, acknowledging that we had operated well inside the boundaries of the law, the motorbike
delivery service started to look attractive to the big groups.
Our long-standing competitor Pony Express was the first
to be acquired by world-class giant tnt that had just become property of the Dutch Mail service.
At the time Daniela had taken me by surprise telling me
she thought it right for her to drastically cut down on the
time she spent working. She said: «The boys are at an age
when it’s important that I look after them more than what
I have done until now».
Lorenzo and Alessandro were respectively 12 and 10 and
at first I could not understand her reasoning. What was
this? All the other mothers I knew said the exact opposite
when their children reached that age: «Now the children
160
slowly please, i’m in a hurry
are old enough so I can go back to work». I told Daniela
that maybe she was wrong and that in any case that could
not be the real reason.
I was deeply impressed by the wisdom of Daniela’s reply.
«At what age do you think our children are more at risk
of making terrible mistakes? Before they are twelve or between twelve and eighteen? From now on, and until they
are twenty, I want to be right behind them. Help me sell
the company».
What could I say? She was perfectly right. Bad company
and awful behavioural habits young people often run into
are typical of that age, while later they are more hardened
to life’s snares and consequently less vulnerable.
In 1998, thanks to Alessandro Benetton, I met Corrado
Passera who was trying at that very time to transform the
Italian Mail service from a State-owned monopoly to a
joint-stock company on a competitive market. He wanted
me to meet him to help him design a modern sporty look
for postmen but when Passera discovered from my brief
introduction about myself that I was involved in Mototaxi,
we instantly stopped talking about uniforms.
In December 1998 we signed a binding agreement and
in the following spring we perfected the sale of Mototaxi,
that through a subsidiary, sda SpA, had become property
of Poste Italiane and Daniela could take on less demanding
entrepreneurial ventures.
Lorenzo and Alessandro were closely guarded by Daniela, got through school and college with good results and
did a lot of sport, reaching the age of twenty ready for life
and without collateral damage. Now they are both attending University with good results and are already planning
their entry into the workplace. Congratulations, mamma
Dani!
161
How do you revamp a tired brand?
I have not been left to wait for some time now. My meetings with
Marco take place without delay and I walk directly into the office
through BasicNet Village’s inner yard. I bother the secretaries…
Roberta, Daniela, Monica. One of the alloSpaccio’s employees, obviously in charge of security, dashed over twice to check who the man
quickly slipping into the president’s office after locking his bicycle to
the railings was. Now she knows she can trust me, that there is nothing to fear and that Boglione is waiting for me.
Over the time I have spent listening to his life’s story and to his adventures as an entrepreneur we have become quite familiar. I can feel
that both of us look forward to our meetings. At times a week went
by without meeting and when we finally managed to see each other it
was a real celebration!
I am grateful for his friendship not because he is a successful businessman or because he is wealthy enough (I said “enough” because it
is the correct definition, not in a manner of speaking), but because
I can always find new reasons to admire his attitude to life. That is
why I hope he will decide to publish a book with the memories I have
noted down until now…
Actually as our meetings progress Marco is coming to enjoy going
over his own story: he is rediscovering himself and the reasons behind
his past and present actions.
Today Boglione has just got back from China. I ask him how the
162
slowly please, i’m in a hurry
Chinese are faring, if the crisis in the u.s. and Europe is affecting them as well. Of course it is and he confirms it. But from his
words I find out that, unlike us Europeans… what am I saying…
us “Torinesi” for example, the Chinese are suffering a lot more at
the moment: businesses are closing down suddenly, job are lost for
undetermined periods of time. Marco reckons they are suffering more
because they have not been hardened by 30-40-50 years of expansion and recession, crucifixions and resurrections, periodical ups and
downs like we have. The Chinese are a bit like a rocket that has been
travelling towards the stars for 30 years and they do not know what
it means to be forced to suddenly slow down… Maybe we will be able
to face the crisis better.
Probably BasicNet is now doing so well because it was born out
of huge effort and enthusiastic impetus, hardened and tested by episodes, circumstances and situations always on the edge of disaster. We
could say – and the story up to now demonstrates this clearly – that
intimacy with critical moments was and still is the inner strength,
the hunger and the thirst of this company. Marco Boglione has never
shipped the oars and has no intention of doing so: he is still sitting
among the oarsmen and rowing with them. He has sailed through
failure more often than success and maybe his current success, his
performance despite the crisis, is due to this.
To this day BasicNet has shown that it is possible to acquire commercially dead brands and revive them. The model for this company
(and in some respects its secret) was actually acquiring what is past
its time and take on the challenge of infusing it with new life. That
is how he made a profit, developing brands.
«I get entrepreneurs worldwide to work – says Marco – to resuscitate the brand with their own money and to their own advantage.»
I observe Boglione as he talks to me walking up and down his
office: he reads out loud a few considerations he has written on the
causes of the economic and financial crisis sweeping the entire planet.
Then he stops and says: «You know Adriano, a lot of people tell me:
“You could allow yourself a lot more, you could profit more from the
company… Who could criticize you for it…”. No, I cannot do it. I
163
how do you revamp a tired brand
have always thought that the company interests come before my own. I
don’t have a house, my living quarters belong to the company and are
located inside the company itself. I do not have my own bank account,
I perceive a salary that guarantees an adequate lifestyle and I work
all day for the company but also for my wife and my children».
Today BasicNet can only compete with global giants like Nike,
Adidas, Puma; in Italy it has no competitors left… Yet if you think
of those terrible days back in 1994 you can understand the gamble,
or rather, Marco Boglione’s provocation to destiny.
Unions put a lot of faith in him. Maybe this is worth a brief
digression. It would have been possible to reach an agreement to save
Maglificio Calzificio Torinese “only” with the support of all the
unions… the fate of 213 people was at stake.
His first pledge, as recalled by him earlier, was to take on 37 of
the 213 who had lost their job, but at the initial stage Boglione made
clear that he was serious by taking on more than agreed: 45. Later,
a few at a time the others came back.
Boglione still was a young entrepreneur, he was 38. Things went so
well with the unions that at the end of the fourth year, a year earlier
than agreed, Boglione had employed 212 of 213 who had lost their
jobs because of mct going bankrupt. All except one who just did not
want to know anymore and changed career.
Three years after the agreement – signed on 11 April 1994 –
union representative Bruno Roberti, Cgil, in a letter to Boglione remembered as «extremely positive the open and loyal relationship»
they had established and stated that the agreement had been «very
important and innovative». As its foundation «there was a “pact”
that the company and the union» had kept to, thus making the first
job offers possible as well as an open discussion to define «together
without confounding our respective roles, amendments, choices and
company prospects». «As far as I’m concerned – concluded the union
man in his letter “although I am currently filling a different post, I
will do what I can so that the new relationship that has come into
being between BasicNet and the union yielding such good results may
continue».
164
How a product is born
At this point I have no idea of what we are driving at.
Surely we both had opinions and we have both formed
other opinions since, but what could be the result of our
conversation? A book? Something else? In any case I’m
sure we should start from the product: this is my system.
Let’s work hard, let’s make a product. Later, when we have
finished, we’ll have time to modify it and to decide. And
we’ll see if what we have done is what we wanted, without
forgetting that an entrepreneur wants his product to be
something that no one else has done before.
There are decisions that are the consequence of how the
product is. In the end this is also my way of life.
I think I can state that my best products have already
been made but not yet sold. And they are the ones that
need more time to be understood but if you manage that,
you enjoy them the most. It is so beautiful to make the
same product for thirty or even eighty tears. In actual fact
why should young people stop buying Superga? Or Robe
di Kappa Polos which we make in 11 different designs, 38
sizes and 64 colours? Or the classic Kappa tracksuit, the
famous «dueduedue»?
People in our line of business must have products to
cover every moment of a recurring cycle, but one thing
165
slowly please, i’m in a hurry
I am quite sure of: products labelled as classic or basic
have something of an uncontaminated quality to them and
will always have a market despite fashion cycles. The true
strength in our business does not exclusively lie in being
able to spot the latest trend but more in being able to make
ageless products.
Alessandro Benetton’s arrival to BasicNet, half way
through 1996, allowed me to develop this and much more.
It made it possible for me to lay the foundations to build
the company as it is today. Alessandro gave us maximum
support but also maximum freedom and trust. He was eight
years younger than me and had built his own business by
establishing 21 Investimenti within the Benetton group. We
were equal partners, the best way to operate untroubled, so
he said. And that is the way it worked out.
The four years we spent together were very important
and good for me as far as my life as an entrepreneur is
concerned. Being close to the Benetton family and the entrepreneurial culture that came with it, helped me to grow
a lot. Benetton invested in me when I had already reached
the age of forty. He believed in my plan and that I had the
entrepreneurial skills to realize it without first thinking how
much money he could make thanks to it.
We did not write up a 3 or 5 year business plan. Our only
aim was development. Thanks to Benetton I was able to
carry out all the strategic investments I thought were necessary to build the company of my dreams. If in a video
aimed at our sales force I said: «Speed and flexibility are
what our competitors will be missing in the near future»,
Benetton called me right away to congratulate me. I felt he
was close to my thinking, in line with my plan. And if I
told him I was thinking of realizing a BasicVillage inside a
former factory half in ruins and that I could not provide
all the economic and financial details necessary to prove it
would be a profitable venture, but that it was paramount
166
how a product is born
to experience that transformation with feeling because it
would be very useful for the company and for the young
people who would work there, immediately a bank would
come out of nowhere granting us 30 billion to renovate
22.000 square meters just because of my vision. And if it
came to dropping out of a sponsorship deal before time,
like the one we had with fc Barcelona, after its president
had offered the considerable amount of 15 billion but I
thought it was not enough, Alessandro would encourage
me over the phone: «Stand your ground». So I closed at
19 billion.
He gave me strength. In those days I had a powerful,
wealthy and esteemed partner who took on by my side
all the challenges faced by the company without sparing
himself.
During the first two years with Benetton we grew a lot.
Everything was going well, our accounts and estate, but
debts had grown to a point I feared might go against my
interests. A recapitalization could work as a solution and
Alessandro was willing to take it into consideration but it
would upset our equal standing when it was working perfectly well. One day I told him: «Let’s refill the tank without
upsetting our balance, let’s get a bank in».
He agreed.
We got in touch with a few financial institutions and only
met with interest. For the first time ever I could choose! The
Swiss giant ubs entered into business with us and through
an outfit set up to deal with venture capital, brought to us
50 billion lire in July 1998. The company had virtually extinguished all of its debts and could rely on plenty of liquid
assets; Alessandro and I still controlled just under 70% of
the company that could, from that moment, also rely on the
direct support of one of the biggest and established banks
in the world, besides the powerful Chinese group Li&Fung.
It was a fundamental pit stop.
167
Towards the Stock Exchange
The deal with ubs was clear: they would leave the partnership within a few years, when it would be quoted on the
Stock Exchange.
Due to financial events in the late 90s and internal issues
at 21 Investimenti, just three months after ubs entered Basic, Benetton changed his mind. His objective was one and
one only: get quoted on the Stock Exchange right away.
I went through some very difficult times: I was between
a rock and a hard place. Between ubs claiming our agreement was different, and Benetton insisting we should opt
for that solution and claiming it would be better for me to
back his decision.
That is what I did and we carried on, despite the fact that
ubs did not agree. A turbulent journey (especially for me
as it was my first time) towards a quotation on the Stock
Exchange started off; a journey which would be over a year
later, on 17 November 1999.
You see Adriano, it did not just involve carrying out a few
formalities and preparing a plan to present to Piazza Affari
(the Italian Stock Exchange, translator’s note). The real issue was working to “phase” the entire company towards its
quotation and it was a job that needed to be done quickly.
Our relationship with ubs did not heal, even with time.
168
slowly please, i’m in a hurry
The choice to go on the Stock Exchange turned out to
be a very expensive one because ubs gave us its approval
on condition we went with a minimum price guaranteed
for them.
In the end we accepted. We feverishly worked on closing
the price. The final negotiation was held one evening in an
office inside a big Milan business bank. The listing price
was low and we had to meet ubs’s conditions, since it had
decided to sell all its shares. I did not want to but I had to
sell some of my shares to meet the Swiss bank’s requirements and so did my family. Negotiations lasted until 5.50
am on the following morning. My relationship with Stella
was firmly established at the time but she still lived in Milan; she came to the bank and waited for me outside. I had
told her: «Come there around 11.30 pm and we’ll leave for
Torino». I thought we would be finished by then.
Our debut on Piazza Affari was three days later.
The surprise was that the long and costly road show we
had conducted through all of Europe before our quotation
to present our plan to the most prestigious financial institutions resulted in zero share purchases! Fortunately we were
rewarded by the retail market: small investors believed in us
and demand for shares was six times more than the amount
available, but it all came from small investors.
We resumed operations with energy and determination
although, I must admit, I was a little dazed.
I tried to see the up side and started to feel convinced the
right thing had happened. I finally felt released, free from
everybody, the captain of my ship, and confident about
my plan: make BasicNet into «the largest company in the
world» operating in sportswear and casual clothing, in spite
of those who years before had patronizingly smiled at the
thought. With these ideas and hopes I left with Stella on 19
November for a 5-day holiday in Mauritius.
The bonds went well at the start. From 3,9 euros they
169
towards the stock exchange
climbed to 4,3. The interest of our investors was stable and
alive and we also got some good press. Our shares were really news because they represented a company which was
fully integrated online and exploited new technologies although it operated in a traditional field.
We had five years of expansion and profit behind us and
had put on the market the majority of shares. When we
went on the Stock Exchange capitalization in relation to
the company’s net estate was slightly above double: well
below the average quotation for comparables and start-ups
of the time. Mine was a transparent game, my bet had no
hidden agenda. We really were a digital company. But we
had not taken into consideration how shallow but powerful
the media are…
One morning Stella woke me with a strange face and
voice. It was 27 November, we had been on the Stock Exchange for 10 days, we had rested a little on our short break
after the hard work leading to our quotation and were still
tanned…
Without a word she showed me the first page of an important financial paper, Milano Finanza, headlining in huge
letters: «www.traps.it». In not so many words we were one
of these traps for small investors. Also because – it said
– BasicNet had claimed to be hi-tech but behind the company name there was «nothing».
It was Saturday morning: what could I do to explain that
our company really was what it claimed to be even with
its name? How could I state that I had had my episode
of Stendhal’s syndrome in 1994 and that I had based my
company on Internet when in Italy there were 200.000 users and there were just 20 million in the whole world? Were
we not at the cutting edge, were we not innovative? So why
could we not present ourselves on the market and ask investors to trust as such?
I realized right away that I would not be able to issue a
170
slowly please, i’m in a hurry
prompt reply through the printed word. I called a couple
of economics journalists I was friends with but they both
gave me little reason for hope. It was impossible for them
to fight such an authority’s position and on the first page.
It was the kind of decision they could not make without
consulting their editors.
So I decided to write a letter to Consob and I urgently
summoned Valentina Bassano and the guys at Menestrello
to record an interview. Il Menestrello (The Minstrel, translator’s note) is an innovative company tv channel we had
started in 1997, a state-of-the-art facility producing a large
number of hours of programming to communicate with
our network of license holders and within the Group. We
had decided to share our strategies, products and all the
news in the best way possible, namely using multimedia.
That was the first, and hopefully the last, time we used
Il Menestrello to communicate something outside of our
network. Valentina was our presenter and our company
video journalist. We started recording at 2.30 pm. At 7 pm
the interview was online. This is a transcript.
Angry?
No. My grandmother Maria would have said: a
donkey’s bray can’t reach the heavens! But that
isn’t the problem. They wrote something on
Milano Finanza that isn’t true, and that is a problem for them and maybe for their readers who
have been ill informed. It’s consumers who are
being deceived. We’re not deceiving anyone.
Admit it, you must be at least a little mad…
Maybe I’m worried, but not about us. This
just confirms our strategy and creates an interest in our way of working. If someone thinks
we’re bluffing I don’t care, facts will make them
171
towards the stock exchange
change their mind. I’m worried about investors
who will be confused to the advantage of the
usual speculators.
Let’s try to clarify things; why are they pointing their
finger at us as a company taking advantage of the circumstances?
Simply because whoever is writing isn’t informed about us, and above all about what is
happening in the world thanks to Internet. The
Web is changing the world: these days there is a
lot of business in selling connections. It’s obvious that everybody needs to be connected but
once the world is connected it will be those who
are integrated that will assert themselves. And
we are a company that was born integrated into
Internet five years ago. We don’t sell “Internet”,
we use it. We use it freely to make t-shirts and
sell them all over the world. We believe in a
company that can manage its offer and its related data flow in a fast, interactive, and reliable
way exactly like the human body does through
its nervous system. We believe in a company
with a digital nervous system. I think everyone
should read Bill Gates’ latest book, Business @
the speed of thought.
What does being a company integrated with Internet
mean?
Internet is a data transmission system. It works
very well, grows constantly, increasing efficiency
and reducing costs. Until now it has responded
flawlessly to democratic laws and market rules.
But it still is a system for transmitting data. For
me the historic opportunity lies in exploiting
172
slowly please, i’m in a hurry
such an innovation. Everyone can rely on a super efficient global data transmission network
with a cost proportional to their dimensions
and the use they make of it. It’s extraordinary!
Those who will exploit it first, whatever their
sector, will acquire a great competitive advantage and expand more rapidly. That’s the way
life works. That’s how we want to make t-shirts;
four years ago we started from scratch, and this
way we have reached 70 markets, increased our
proceeds fourfold, taken on 250 people; some
also say that we are something of an example
in our sector, and on top of it all we have made
a profit and built a solid financial situation. As
soon as it was possible we put the majority of
our capital on the market, distributed shares to
all the Group’s human resources and declared
we wanted to build a public company. That is
what we believe and what we are trying to do.
Even so, some say that there is nothing behind the façade
even asking the Authority to ban the use of suffixes like
net, web etc, to avoid deceiving investors.
Again, I don’t think that’s our problem. Or actually, now that I think of it, it’s also in a way
our problem as it shows our communication is
lacking enormously.
Our company?
You see, online you can find anything, the good
and the bad about us. We have basicpress.com
free to all, a real journalistic site about us, but
people have to know it’s available and want to
go there. Many journalists do so, some give us
advice, and in any case they appreciate the ef-
173
towards the stock exchange
fort aimed at providing better quality to their
work and information in general. Probably
many still don’t know about it and this is, of
course, our fault.
What is your advice for investors at this point?
The same it was up to a week ago, namely buy
our shares, but also, as I have always maintained, keep hold of them for at least a year.
Our company makes t-shirts, we need time to
show our partners that by using Internet we will
grow faster. Any kind of journalistic or financial speculation is useless and just a distraction.
At what level would you like shares to become stable?
I would just like them to become stable. Full
stop. Or rather, dot com!
174
The objective drifts away
On the following Monday, when the Stock Exchange
opened, shares started to drop in value. A month later they
had lost a third of their value. Talk about stable… And
what is worse, at a time when everything was skyrocketing.
I felt like a mountaineer close to the peak that for reasons
not depending on him is drawn back down.
Shortly afterwards other problems came to the surface
because the company structure started creaking.
It was not just because of the wind raised by the media and
the financial world against us. Our problems were directly
related to the turbulent growth of recent years, troubled by
the necessity of working to deadlines to get quoted on the
Stock Exchange: a real race against time which had forced
us to consider as done things that still needed work.
We soon had to face three main problematic areas that
would affect us for years to come: in Germany, Spain and
the u.s., where we had just as many shareholders. Issues
in Germany cost us three years of company restructuring,
in Spain, after Antonio Oliveres died, we got to the point
where we were forced to buy everything back, thus compounding our financial situation. And finally the emergency
in the States.
Our structure began to sway until it risked collapsing at
175
slowly please, i’m in a hurry
the end of 2003 under the weight of consistent losses made
worse by other problems like Giacomelli’s bankruptcy, who
was at the time our biggest client.
Not only, in 1999 we had to say goodbye to our established
and long-standing collaboration with Juventus. We were just
thrown out without much sweet-talk; Barcelona behaved
quite differently but they had decided to go with Nike.
More debacles followed, one after the other. We lost
Vasco da Gama in Brazil as well as the South Africa and
Jamaica teams, the pillars of our international marketing.
At the time we had to endure extremely violent attacks
from our competitors.
The storm lasted for at least five years, between 2001 and
2006; difficult years where I managed to stay at the helm
but not without struggling.
If all that was not enough in those years important players inside the company decided to jump ship: Leproni,
Marconetto and others who were quite important for our
style department, left. But above all William Carelli, my
long-standing it point of reference. The man who already
spoke of client servers and object-oriented programming
in 1993, who had effectively become BasicNet’s it manager. The man with whom I had planned, starting from
zilch, or rather from a field, our first integrated logistics
plant in Strada della Cebrosa, Torino and with whom I had
first talked about the company’s digital nervous system. He
left, almost slamming the door, another case of: «You are
insane».
One day he said: «The difference between the as/400 and
pcs is that in ten years the as/400 has never crashed, and on
the contrary a day hasn’t gone by without pcs crashing at
least once. You can’t expect to run a business worth 100
billion with some toys». I replied that if that was his point,
men and women stopped working a lot more than once a
176
the objective drifts away
day if only to have some coffee, and above all they made
a lot more mistakes than pcs, and that I did not want to go
without the as/400 , but just have it “talk” to his “peers”, pcs
and not people; I reminded him of the many times we had
spoken of “desktopcracy” instead of classical bureaucracy
but it was all in vain. He practically left within 48 hours!
At the end of 2000 a financial emergency also hit us: a
financing line worth 20 billion lire with a pool of important
banks was about to expire. We asked to renew it but it was
not approved. Drastic action was required.
At that stage I was alone, gone were Minoli, Benetton and
ubs, but luckily Carlo Pavesio was still on the scene. We had
looked for different solutions with a number of financial
institutions, also overseas, hoping they would be interested
in the prospects offered by our business model, but they
only made offers subject to purchasing my stake to then
take the company off the Exchange and sell the brands.
I spoke at length with Carlo and with William Fung and
in the end we resolved to carry on by ourselves.
The two years following our quotation had been extremely hard and both our young managing directors, Paolo Cafasso and Simon Bamber, were, for different reasons, in
a pickle. Carlo and I decided we had to recruit somebody
from outside the Group to entrust with the financial and
operational management as well as cost control. Despite
everyone’s commitment, willingness and courage we would
not make it by ourselves.
Carlo knew that Franco Spalla, after many years spent
at the helm of Fenera SpA, the investments firm that had
held a small percentage until the Exchange, was ready for a
new professional challenge.
I had known Franco for a few years and he knew us well
enough. He was the right man and if it was true that he was
looking for a real professional challenge, he had found it.
177
slowly please, i’m in a hurry
At that point the situation was critical. We had to regain
the confidence of the credit business, but also handle some
important issues regarding our financial accounts. All in all
the risk of failure was at the time really high. If there is
something Franco is not lacking, and after eight years working with him all day I can confidently state this, it is courage;
and he showed it on that occasion by agreeing to come on
board of our small ship sailing on troubled waters.
I handed over the helm to Franco and left the bridge to
personally join the crew in the most critical manoeuvres; in
the meantime I had reached 45.
As a matter of fact Spalla was the first person with an
established professional experience that came to fill an important post at BasicNet from the outside.
Not long after Franco had joined us the 9/11 tragedy
took place. In the following four years we had to manage
a rather unusual and surreal situation, a bit like in an epic
war movie: a seriously hit destroyer struggles not to sink
and at the same time carries on fighting, untamed, instead
of falling back. Every year we hoped for a new season to
dawn, dressing our wounds, trying to battle on and avoid
sinking. We drastically cut back on advertising and stopped
hiring new staff. We had pulled the purse strings wherever
it was possible but on one thing we did not cut down a
single penny: it. It was our heavy artillery and if we had to
cut back on that we might as well give up. We would rather
stop breathing than stop investing in our business model.
The only moments of tension of the few we experienced
with our collaborators of the time were always due to this
kind of decision.
What we wanted to achieve made sense, even if the risk
was high because we were saving money in any way we
could, but we carried on investing there.
Half way through 2004 I feared that would be the last
year with me as the head of the company. Our shares had
178
the objective drifts away
progressively sunk in value to the point of losing 90% of
their original quotation, and that year it looked like we
would close the accounts with a loss worth a staggering
12.5 million euros: a disaster.
In previous years our beautiful outfits for the Italian national football team had increased our shares’ value in an
incredible yet technically unexplainable way. In a few days
shares climbed from 70 cents to 3 euro, but the disastrous
match between Italy and South Korea during the 2002
World Cup, refereed by that shady character known as Byron Moreno, put an end to that improvised lottery and our
shares lost all they had gained in a few dramatic sessions.
As if that was not enough at the end of 2004, we received
two further blows: figc (Federazione Italiana Giuoco Calcio), a.k.a. the national team, barred us from the tender to
renew the contract and chose Puma. Also toroc (Torino
Organising Committee for the xx Olympic Winter Games),
with whom we were at an advanced stage of negotiation to
become sponsors of the Italian Team for Torino’s Winter
Games, sent us packing at the last minute and chose a Japanese sponsor, Asics.
179
The time of K-Way and Superga
On the whole, 2004 was a real mess and our shares dropped
to 50 cents. Only four years earlier we were at 4 euros! Stella and I had also been together for four years. But I could
not give up. One day I was talking to Alessandro Benetton
(we had always kept in touch) and he asked me how things
were going. Once more, and with the usual confidence, I
told him about my vision, and all the things I was doing to
keep going. He was very quiet. I felt that on the other end
of the line Alessandro, on that occasion, did not see eye
to eye with me. «You don’t think we can make it, right?» I
asked him. He replied that he thought it was too late but he
congratulated me on my determination and, naturally, said
he hoped he was wrong.
At this point I feel I have to draw a parallel because the
final weeks of 2004 were in many ways almost a repeat
performance of the unbelievable events of 1994 when I
had taken over mct.
Ten years earlier I was in a spot of trouble with fsm, but
I had managed to get out of that almost hopeless situation
with a gamble, managing to acquire a much bigger company which had recently gone bust. At the time I was once
more in troubled waters and had decided to stake all on
180
slowly please, i’m in a hurry
acquiring the K-Way and Superga brands, as I knew they
were in trouble.
So I got in touch with Nicolò von Wunster, partner and
administrator of Formula Sport Group, the company that
owned them. I realized straight away they were in deeper
trouble than us.
Unicredit and Intesa, the banks we are closest to in Italy,
found our plan interesting, also because they where in some
ways involved with Formula Sport’s poor performance. At
least they did not tell me I was insane.
As usual we had no money but a grand project. Debts had
increased considerably, our accounts were empty, banks
were cutting back everywhere they could and we now had
to beg them not to force us to cover our overdrafts.
It was in this apparently disastrous situation that I tried
to hit the jackpot.
In January 2005 the banks approved a loan of 9 million
euros to the Group to buy K-Way and another worth 11
millions to me for a different gamble: a 25 million increase
in capital for BasicNet that I guaranteed for my part thanks
to that money.
The market’s reaction to the capital increase proposal was
a disaster. Basically only William Fung and I went for it although the price was excellent: 0,52 euro per share.
On the plus side thanks to the shareholders who had not
joined in the capital increase my position had gone from
30,001% to 42,5%, although heavily in debt and full of
covenants.
The increase in capital was carried out to give the company the resources necessary not only to buy K-Way, but
also to relaunch the Superga brand that we had leased with
an option to buy a few years later.
It was tears and blood for BasicNet’s shares, that from
0,52 carried on losing value and it seemed that nothing
could stop their fall.
181
the time of k-way and superga
If they reached 0,34 euros the banks had the authorization
to take all my shares to cover the credit they had given me.
On 13 August 2005 I was sailing into Budelli bay, in the
Maddalena archipelago, when I received a call from Pavesio:
«Shares are at 37 cents, at 34 the banks can start collection
procedures». It was a blow but I decided to say nothing to
Stella and the boys: it would only ruin their day as well. I
spent a very thoughtful few hours. At that point I was almost sure shares would keep falling. I did not call Pavesio
or go online all day; I decided to wait until we returned to
the harbour to discover what my fate would be. In the afternoon rates recovered a little and shares were at 35 cents
when markets closed. I still had a business.
That was the lowest our shares ever fell.
2005 ended better than we had expected. Our shares got
some oxygen but we still risked not being able to keep to
the covenants included in the loan agreements signed with
the banks to buy K-Way and increase our capital. As if
that was not enough a reasonable forecast for the following
years confirmed that the balance between debt and credit
would soon be upset the wrong way.
Already half way through 2005 the banks had told us
we would have to recapitalize the Group or they would be
forced to declare us in default of the contract and revoke
all credit.
We were well aware that our estate was worth a lot more
than the balance figures the banks used to work out its ratio to debt because, over the years, we had created a huge
value bound to our intangible assets, namely our brands.
But since these were not accounting data they were not
taken into consideration. Someone – at the time everyone
had some advice for us! – kept on telling us we needed an
industrial partner to guarantee for our plan. I was sure of
just one thing: I had to find in the shortest time possible at
182
slowly please, i’m in a hurry
least 30 million euros to add to BasicNet’s net capital. If I
did not I would lose everything.
Carlo, Franco and I sprung into action.
The months from October 2005 and the end of April
2006 were one of those times when anything could happen, and it did, including the Olympic Games in Torino I
was heavily involved in because we were housing what was
to be a great success, Casa Russia, but it also brought to
the historic turning point we were waiting for, which is still
supporting us now.
183
China
In September 2005, Chen Yihong – a very intelligent man
who I hold in very high consideration, the president and
owner of Kappa China, and a successful license holder
of ours for years – invited me to his convention to talk
about something he said was very important. He explained
he had the opportunity to expand massively but he also
needed capital; to make a long story short he offered to
invest in Kappa China. At first I looked at him stunned,
then I explained I was looking for investors too. So Chen
proposed a new long term license contract valid for at least
fifteen years; this would allow him to find investors thus
the resources necessary to support an increase in the number of single brand Kappa shops, an increase that would be
quite considerable. At the time we had 700 retail shops in
China, now there are almost 3000 Kappa shops! The idea
of a long license contract could also suit us as long as I
could find someone to pay a part of the minimum royalties
guaranteed in advance.
A few days later Chen was in Torino with a real and interesting offer. Essentially he was offering a minimum of
120 million dollars guaranteed for the first 12 years. Maybe we had found a solution to our problems but we still
needed to find a bank to sell the contract to in exchange
184
slowly please, i’m in a hurry
for an advance of a third of the proceeds of the following
12 years.
At the same time negotiations undertaken with a number
of financial institutions that had expressed an interest in
considering an investment in BasicNet were in process.
The solution envisaging a long term licensing contract
with Kappa China was my favourite by large as it would
have made it possible to settle BasicNet’s financial situation and to hold on to the brand in China, and above all we
would not jeopardize the amazing growth opportunities on
that market. I would also still be completely independent in
managing the company as no new financial partners would
be coming in who could influence strategic decisions and
investments.
Unfortunately no Italian credit institution wanted to take
part in the operation. I even went to Shangai to see if
there were any possibilities through Sanpaolo’s Chinese
branch but they did not want to know either. To put it in
a few words the operation Chen and I had planned was
not viable.
Fortunately on the other hand in December 2005 negotiations with an investment company seemed to be going
well; we had gone through all the most critical aspects of
the operation and solved them, reaching an agreement on
basically everything. BasicNet would receive the liquid assets it needed to satisfy the banks and I would still be the
majority shareholder in the Group even if I would share
control and management decisions with the new partner.
During the first months of 2006, with the bank’s approval,
we would have to formalize the operation in time for the
shareholders’ convention to be held at the end of April. I
thought we had once again found a way out of our predicament. Since we could not make it on our own I was hoping
in a new partner because the alternative would be selling
the Kappa brand to the competition.
185
china
I told myself that in the end I would have by my side a
prestigious partner whom I very much esteemed.
On 4 February Rocco was born, on the 9th I carried the
Olympic torch and on the 10th the xx Olympic Winter
Games opened in Torino. But during the first week of
the Games I started to worry; a few meetings with our
prospective investors went unexpectedly wrong. We were
supposed to hone the last details but everything was again
up for discussion. A few days later we realized that our
potential partners – I still can’t understand why – had radically changed their minds. I spoke about the situation with
the banks; they were perfectly aware of the situation but
they were less than forthcoming. I remember that one late
Friday afternoon I asked the bank manager, who did not
want to hear about taking into consideration an extension
of our credit lines for the time I needed to find a solution, what I was supposed to do after the Group meeting,
since I certainly could not replace the investor who had
just dropped out by that time. He looked at me astonished
and it was as if he answered: «Why the hell are you asking me? You know perfectly well what you’ll have to do»;
then with a half apologetic, half rueful tone of voice he
literally said: «You’ll file for bankruptcy, what else are you
going to do?!?».
I left the bank in a hurry. I was obviously wasting my time
and it would have been better if I did not lose my temper
too, something hard to keep in check after such a reply.
The following day I got in touch with Chen’s interpreter.
I explained I had to convey an urgent message to his boss.
Instead of the 15-year contract I was offering the definitive
sale of the Kappa brand for China so long as he could find
Chinese investors who could front the resources we needed, as well as funds for the development of Kappa China.
Chen was interested right away.
186
slowly please, i’m in a hurry
The following week I travelled to China and Chen told
me that a Hong Kong investment fund, through an important and prestigious American business bank, had expressed an interest in the operation with a view to opening
on the Stock Exchange. It was late February, just a month
before the meeting that would have to approve the data to
take to the shareholders’ meeting at the end of April; not
much time at all to close such an important and complex
operation given that we had just started talking about it.
We decided to give it a go anyway. An unforgettable 30day-period started and on 27 March 2006, the day before
the board meeting, after an exhausting negotiation and a
lot of travelling, we finally signed the deal selling off the
Kappa brand in China at an important Hong Kong law
firm. BasicNet would cash 30 million euros and with that
money it would ward off the covenants menace forever.
187
A new frontier
Thanks to that sale we were able to balance our accounts
and start on a new voyage.
It allowed us to decrease our debts 30 million euro and
to increase our net capital over 25 million. All the covenants’ parameters were sorted, or actually they were better
if compared with our limits. And that is why 2006 started
on a very positive note, at least from the point of view of
company management.
We were seeing the first results of our strategies to relaunch Superga, results which would have been impossible
even just a year earlier. Our shares recovered well, going
from 0,70 euro to approximately 2 euro. To be honest in
the first six months of 2006 we managed to catch up on
many fronts. It was a decisive turning point: because of
the relief due to selling the Kappa brand in China, because
our shares were increasing in Piazza Affari, because of the
final results of our six-month audit that benefited from
Superga’s success.
On the other hand Formula Sport Group SpA, who had
sold us K-Way and leased us Superga, unexpectedly tumbled towards bankruptcy. And that meant that if we wanted
to keep Superga within the Group we would have to move
very quickly to purchase the brand, without any guarantee
188
slowly please, i’m in a hurry
we would actually succeed. And that is exactly what we did
and ended right back in the middle of the storm to avoid
losing the brand responsible for our growth.
The exclusive long-term lease was as a matter of fact no
longer valid after they filed for bankruptcy so we found
ourselves in the middle of a new challenge that was over after the first three months of 2007 when we finally managed
to buy Superga. We bought the brand for 23 millions, half
of which was ours and half through a new mid-term loan
from the same banks that only a year earlier had shunned
us: we had finally convinced them we were able, reliable
and capable of creating value.
I knew that we were always under scrutiny and that during our history we had constantly had to show that we were
“worthy” and not to someone who wants to test you because they believe you can make it. No: we had to show
what we were capable of to people who thought we could
not make it from the start. And this, Adriano, makes a hell
of a difference. We have always had to put in an extra effort because we did not just have to prove ourselves, we
had to fight against prejudice.
189
A safe journey on a stormy sea
And now Adriano let us talk about the present. A year and
a half has gone by since that new, decisive turning point.
We had managed to secure the ship that was to take us on
our voyage on the high seas.
Since then BasicNet has fully confirmed a tendency to
improve the management and results of its enterprises.
A trend rooted in what happened at the start of 2006.
So it is a solid trend, based on the growth of volumes,
profits and capital. We managed to keep going despite the
first signals or rather the first jolts, of the economic and
financial crisis we are all aware of today. These jolts have
come through to the present and have also affected the
value of our shares. Within a year all the hard work to
get to 2 euros was invalidated and shares fell to approximately 1.5 euros, but apart from this, all the rest – the way
we handle our financial strategies with credit institutions,
sales, profits, cost efficiency – has constantly and systematically improved. And this was confirmed in 2007 by the
return of dividend distribution, something that had not
happened since 2000! In the meantime I have sold some
shares and more or less halved some of the personal debts
I contracted to increase capital.
So where are we at now?
190
slowly please, i’m in a hurry
Before talking about me and my company we must first
of all take a look at the social context. If we did so we
could get the feeling that another “Berlin wall” has fallen,
and that the time has come to pay the bill for winning the
Cold War. We can say that the battle against communism
was won not so much with market capitalism but more
simply with consumerism and credit-supported capitalism.
We live in a world that took advantage of the globalization
short cut with the illusion of creating wealth with large,
superfluous consumption or even worse with the so called
financial industry instead of a solid real economy.
And now everybody is terrified that the crisis might reach
the core: consumption; that with time the crisis will cause
us to collapse. And at that point the problem would not
just be a simple loss of capital. The real risk would be the
definitive defeat of capitalism, because there would be no
more fuel for the engine to run on. How will we reach that
point? Consumption will fall if unemployment rises because poverty will also spread, so there will be less spending capacity.
But when and how do we cause unemployment? When
a company is no longer competitive on the market. The
point then is, especially today, that it is paramount to strive
to be more competitive. So this is what we need to ask
ourselves: am I competitive enough to conquer my share
of the market? And more: is there a sufficient number of
really competitive firms at least on the European scene to
face the world market? If the answer is yes – and I believe
it is – then we could possibly conceive this crisis also as an
opportunity to relaunch the western model of social organization through our best assets, thus in a more solid and
long lasting way. If the answer is no then we are in trouble.
We will have to issue protective measures for our companies, thus backtracking from the purely theoretical point of
view of the free market, but escaping recession.
191
a safe journey on a stormy sea
Concerning our company we need to put it into context in
the the last part of 2008, the worst period for the economy
since the post-war years. Nothing was moving. We held out,
our ship carried on sailing without running aground.
I have wondered about the reasons behind this many
times and I think it is because in the previous 10 years we
made the right choices. We have always tried to build the
company, nothing else. As Moana Pozzi rightly put it: «We
always lived as if it could all end tomorrow, and thought as
if it would never end». We worked with strategy, method
and creativity. And we always thought that we could not be
competitive without being at the forefront in the use of
new technologies. We always believed in a company that
could be considered such because it was global. We always
believed in the contribution that an entrepreneur can bring
to a large organization. We always believed in transparency
and in operating in accordance with the law. We never gave
in to the temptation of solving our problems with operations of a financial nature or purpose. We always insisted,
even when the wind was blowing against us at 100 knots,
on what we perceived to be the right positioning for our
product: premium merchandise and clever price.
In the last 10 years we did all this. Fortunately for us many
of our competitors did exactly the opposite. Today when
our sales force goes out with our products it finds a smaller
market, or to use a metaphor, a smaller buffalo but there
are a lot less lions to hunt it. So even a very small, but quick
and enterprising lion can eat very well, obviously after the
biggest are sated.
Today we are in a strategically positive situation. Consumers respect us because they can see we are serious. I have
been making t-shirts for 32 years (so much for eclectic Boglione, like some continue to say!). Everything I have done
until now has been in the interest of making t-shirts. Our
192
slowly please, i’m in a hurry
customers also respect us because they can see we strive to
do a good job, to use less paper, to be fast, clear and transparent. And now we also have a solid network of entrepreneurs, our license holders, using BasicNet with profit.
Now I am here, I have almost finished telling this story to
my friend Adriano, and I’m already thinking of what I will
do when I will quit work: the forecast is for 8 May 2016.
I am still sleeping at the office – it has been converted
into a weird but very comfortable home – I still think about
the future, about my family, about what I have to do to
avoid mistakes. I still have the same fears, insecurities and
weaknesses I have always had. I look in the mirror and tell
myself that I am 52 but if I had to say at what stage of my
journey I am I would still say: «Not half way, not at the end,
still at the beginning».
I still have the same relationship with money: I do not
have any, I have never had any. Yet my budget has increased
very much over the years, my expenses have increased, I
basically have two families. And I am very happy that I
managed to do this thanks to my work, and to my salary.
As far as I am concerned I still believe in something I understood about ten years ago, namely that the richest man
in the world is not the man who has the most money, but
the man who has the least needs; so for a few years now I
have no longer increased my consumption.
193
AFTERWORD
Slowly please, I’m in a hurry
Accepting fear
Marco, I have a lot of questions for you. Let’s start from the beginning: we said that writing your story would make sense only if it
was useful to young people, if it became an opportunity to make
entrepreneurial ventures interesting for them.
That’s right. I would also like to tell young people that
there is a necessary condition: you need to accept fear.
What I often find is just the opposite, that people tend shy
away from experiencing fear. This happens because we live
without experiencing fear for our lives. Both these attitudes
are wrong. The first, trying to avoid the experience of fear,
truly is a disease. The second, living without experiencing
fear, is the symptom of the disease. On the contrary young
people must feel the anxiety and fear deriving from their
expectations.
What is the meaning of your work, what drove you to do what you
have done until now?
It was the need for independence, for myself and for
those close to me, the eagerness to make a position for
myself, the desire to be a free man, or at the very least not
to be too much of a slave. Work is for me the means, the
tool, the good Christian’s vineyard, the body of the soul…
otherwise what should we do to avoid being enslaved, to
195
slowly please, i’m in a hurry
best take advantage of our brief existence? And if we don’t
work, what do we do?
As far as I’m concerned I could live as a hermit but I
am responsible for too many people. Sure I could’ve lived
under a tree, desisting from all effort like the fox with the
grapes because nondum matura est (Latin for «it isn’t ripe
yet», translator’s note), but my dreams were my starting point,
earning a good living. It would’ve certainly been easy to
think I’d wander around with a boat when I still didn’t have
so many people depending on me. But I must also think of
those working with me.
Is that how you think of your employees?
They’re my colleagues. In my company there are two
kinds of people, typical of the life of a businessman: partners and those I call my colleagues. To use naval terms the
former are the ship owners the latter are the crew. I have
with them the typical relationship that good captains in
movies have with their crew. Ours is a relationship. Before
anything else they are my buddies, because work takes up a
large part of life. Some people have been with me for over
25 years. And those joining us now, coming on board now,are deciding in some way to be my mates.
I am also friends with some of them. Maybe half of my
best friends (which goes to show that there aren’t so many)
are also colleagues of mine. But our working relationship
is still based on hierarchy.
BasicNet is built on a system based on hierarchies. But I
have also travelled up these hierarchies myself, and I think
this is the reason for the respect I am accorded by my colleagues. And I also thing it is my duty to plan everyone’s
future, always, and I’m sure this makes my work easier because for my mates it’s like having a problem less to deal
with, because I’m taking care of it. And they trust me.
Some people in the company call me, within our “circus”,
196
accepting fear
the “lion tamer”, which is also a form of security for the
circus. For the time being my colleagues have never seen
me desperate.
Do you think it’s important to know how to toil?
Of course, but you have to find a way of getting a lot done
but also limiting toil. Because toil is tiring! You musn’t be
tired. In my line of work the real problem is stress, which
can tire you out more than climbing a mountain. That’s
why I have always worked against stress. If anyone asks
me who the architect who designed my house is I answer:
«Mr. Stress». I wanted to design an stress-proof home, a
home that couldn’t become untidy. I designed wardrobes
with no drawers because drawers are a source of dangerous and permanent mess. I have 15 televisions indoors to
avoid the stress of having to remain seated and not be able
to do other things. Fight stress with irony, with games. We
already knew this when we started this venture: we organized lots of parties, also inviting our clients. When we
first moved into this building, that had to be completely
renovated, we often used to rollerblade around it or dance
to music at full blast.
Ok. Handling fatigue by fighting stress, but… defeats – and you’ve
experienced quite a few – how do you deal with them?
Defeats are also part of the game. It’s better if you’re
defeated because you made a mistake. And it’s true, this has
happened to me on more than one occasion. But unfortunately it can happen (and it does quite often) that you’re defeated because somebody cheated. It would be much better
never to experience that kind of defeat. I experienced some
bitter defeats of this kind. Clearly they too make you stronger, but they also make you more wary and cynical and in
the end they limit your creativity. On the whole I would say
that you learn the most from your own mistakes.
197
slowly please, i’m in a hurry
Is gratitude important at work?
It’s the foundation of my work. When a client buys one
of my t-shirts, I say t-shirts but it could be any of BasicNet’s products, he does so because he is grateful. Grateful
in the sense that he acknowledges something for which I
have to be thankful myself. Gratitude is the foundation of
the market. This is very important in our relationship with
our clients, our license holders, not because we are “good”
but because, on the free market, gratitude is economy.
Let’s delve a little deeper: when you achieve something you aspired
to, when you reach success, what do you think about? Are you prone
to saying thank you?
There always are new battles. You must consider that if
a product is successful, nine times out of ten it doesn’t
mean it didn’t have or still has some problems. There are a
lot of stages to the journey – and consequently in the success – of a businessman. Mine were, for example, acquiring mct’s brands, the arrival of Benetton, being quoted on
the Exchange and finally recapitalization and the sale of a
brand in China: it always is a crescendo. These have been
our milestones, one battle after the other. But they were
battles won by a group of people. So yes there is gratitude,
because you congratulate those that made success possible,
your companions on the adventure, your colleagues and
the lawyers who gave you a hand.
A company must also be grateful to those who financed it…
BasicNet’s relationship with finance is the same a car has
with petrol, or the human body has with blood. It is an essential tool for the life of a company and above all for a
company’s growth. But BasicNet and I don’t have a relationship with the financial industry because I don’t understand
it. I already struggle to grasp our industrial, commercial and
financial process – as it’s quite difficult to understand –,
198
accepting fear
imagine if I understand how some papers sold to others
can help me in the industrial trend. Financiers or investment
funds representatives have often proposed I let finance into
the company, but during those conversations I never managed to understand where, how and if they would help me
make t-shirts and build a modern company.
We respect finance and gave it a lot of attention from
the start, since Sanpaolo’s branch number 20 or crt in Rivarolo helped us. We still work very well with credit institutions, there is no dirt on us in their databases. We have been
quoted on the Stock Exchange for almost 10 years and we
still hope that the capital market will one day be able to
play an active role for well-managed companies looking at
the future.
During our conversations you have often talked about your business
model. How would you sum it up?
A summary could be as follows: BasicNet does not sell tshirts but business opportunities, and capitalizes the results
basically by increasing the value of its brands and related
commercial activities. BasicNet is a networked company,
exclusively made up of entrepreneurs, each carrying out a
portion of the clothing industry’s pipeline. All this still in
a competitive way, without the possibility of trusts cropping up at any level. All the main exchange procedures and
related information is managed by it systems owned by the
Group and without the use of paper. The Group’s activity
and performance can therefore be verified and corrected
in real time.
You have often sailed through failure or even just the risk of failure, and you have always come out as the winner and strengthened.
What are the qualities necessary to face company difficulties?
In my life I never lost hope and at the same time I don’t
think I ever deluded myself. I undoubtedly got myself in
199
slowly please, i’m in a hurry
very tight corners but I did it thinking I could win. But this
isn’t a quality really. A quality would be, for example, the
ability to evaluate, because you have to make a decision
anyway. So you need to evaluate correctly. But before this
quality it is necessary to have a clear vision of what could
happen, including the possibility that you might not hit the
target. If there is this clarity then you can spend all the energy you have, because on the other side you see the “carrot” that could become yours. I have never done anything
without perceiving the existence of this “carrot”.
I think that the bankruptcy of your own business must
be a very sad thing: something comparable to a captain
watching his ship sink. But the only kind of failure I take
into consideration is when one can say: «I tried and I didn’t
succeed», and he is, of course, the last to abandon ship. I
am not interested in other forms of failure.
How did you manage to breathe new life into “dead” brands, presenting them as new?
Fortunately we don’t just own one brand. In 1994 when
we bought Kappa, and we were just starting out, it was
even “deader” than Superga, one of our most recent acquisitions. And K-Way was even worse than Kappa and
Superga. How did I bring them back to life? I know my job,
but that’s because I had the opportunity of learning from
the best at an epic time, and received the most comprehensive training you could imagine. And I then understood
that to achieve results you need a system, a method, a tool,
and some ideas, you must know your job inside out. What
came first, the egg or the chicken? I tried to build a chicken
that would lay eggs.
Who are BasicNet’s designers?
They are our brand managers and above them there is a
supervisor, the senior brand manager, a man who knows the
200
accepting fear
market as much as I do, and it is not by chance that he is the
same age as me and has had the same mentors. His name is
Alberto Balloco. He is the “shepherd” of these young brand
managers who are the real designers behind the brand. And
then, to be honest, I am the head designer. Not because I’m
me, but because no entrepreneur can risk delegating one
of the fundamental aspects of the business to someone invested with less responsibility. I’m sure fiat’s chief designer
is Marchionne. He takes the first or the last decision.
What is your input in the collections?
My input is having built a vast style department to develop products based on effective, efficient and fast systems.
This is the important part I take merit for. I imagine the
product in its entirety. So I think about how K-Way should
evolve for the next five years, what image it should put
forward when compared to its competitors. I painstakingly
research the product’s philosophy, its values. For instance,
I wanted to base K-Way on classic products made contemporary by the K-Way style, that are always functional, never
short-lived, always up to date, modern, with a technological feel and brightly coloured. Then we go into product
details, by category, to check whether they make sense. BasicNet also has an Art Director, Alex Jorio, who looks after
the Group’s aesthetics, so to speak, and marginally also its
products.
How important are women in your work and for your company?
In life I am definitely a romantic, a dreamer, a visionary.
And this must have played a part in my relationship with
women. But beyond that, maybe it is with them that I managed and still manage to communicate better. It’s easier,
you can always be ironic without ever having to become
vulgar as it often happens between men. The relationship
between a man and a woman is more sophisticated by
201
slowly please, i’m in a hurry
definition. In our company 75% of our human resources
and 50% of our managers are women, so this must say
something about their importance here. They are the key
people. They are a lot more faithful to the company if
compared to their male colleagues (of course this must
also be because of the employment market), who are more
prone to look for other employment opportunities. And it
also seems to me that women are more stable on the job
because they more easily feel that the company is something of their own.
You often speak of “destiny” as of a key to understanding an
entrepreneur’s commitment. What do you mean?
The way I see it destiny is what you carry inside you.
Maybe it exists as a landing place one is destined to get to,
but it’s difficult to say whether we are living a movie which
has already been shot or if we’re doing the shooting ourselves. We don’t know that. I think we all make our own
destiny, we create it ourselves. The world is determined by
us human beings. However on other occasions you also
experience the reality of an adverse fate, which is beyond
you. There are blows you can dodge and others that you
simply can’t. All in all, and work is a perfect example, in life
there are so many different influences that it’s absolutely
impossible to predict what will happen.
So if we determine our own fate, do you act within society with a
mission?
When I was young I wanted to change the world, but for
some time now I’ve taken action to prevent the world from
changing me. Apart from this, I think entrepreneurs have a
mission, and it’s the same as mankind’s: to undertake rather
than fight. In this sense I think I am in the right place because I want to build something, improve our life in common, aiming at quality of life. What’s the alternative?
202
accepting fear
Where do you get the enthusiasm to start your work again every
morning?
I don’t get it together every day. There are mornings when
I look for it and can’t find it. If I get up on the wrong side
of the bed I am absorbed by the “machine”. In that case I
get to the office and go through meetings, urgent things to
do and everything I am reminded of by Roberta, because
they’re on my schedule. So I just start running. Where do I
get my enthusiasm when I find it? It’s inside me.
What is time for an entrepreneur? Is it a favourable condition or
a barrier to be knocked down?
Time flies and the worst thing that can happen is having
to do something twice. When in doubt it’s better to move
slowly as to avoid going back on one’s steps, because time
is limited. It’s true that the quicker a company moves, the
further it travels, but statistically it’s more important to do
things properly than quickly, even if it feels like it’s taking
longer. This is because in the long term you travel further
if you never have to go back. So I think about all the time
we spent building our IT procedures to make our network
function at the speed of light without any mistakes. And as
we were doing this we felt we were wasting time. But… One
of our claims really hit the nail on the head, as a Spanish
friend of mine once said: «Slowly please, I’m in a hurry».
Hhm… I like that, it could be the title of this story. So Marco, are we
putting this book together?
Yes.
203
BLOG
The archetypal entrepreneur
by Carlo De Matteo
CEO Iride Servizi
A characteristic trait of an entrepreneur’s life is the choice
to exercise his freedom and personal responsibility within
a financial initiative.
We know that behind any entrepreneurial venture, even
the most modest ones, there is a personal ambition to
build something, and that this ambition to succeed must
be based on a winning idea (the “business idea” of management theory). Marco Boglione has had a lot of ideas,
but undoubtedly his best was the one that brought him to
purchase mct and its wealth of established brands from
its trustee in bankruptcy. All the qualities making up the
ideal entrepreneur can be seen in this operation: boldness,
vision, a sense of risk, managerial rigour, personal sacrifice, leadership, respect for money – both one’s own and
other people’s –, and creativity; but something intangible
is necessary for the sum of these qualities to result in an
enterprise: genius, that is, the ability to create something
new that is more valuable than the simple sum of available
resources. It is thanks to this process, defined by economists as the “creation of value”, that an entrepreneur redistributes affluence for himself and for his employees, offering products and useful services to meet our needs. If we
thought about this every morning when turning the water
204
slowly please, i’m in a hurry
tap on, we would be surprised to see it flow and we would
feel grateful for all the work and innovations that brought
us through history from the well and bucket to our sink.
So genius, not superego; because an entrepreneur is a
man or a woman, not a superman or superwoman beyond
good and evil, someone who may fail and is aware of it.
Quoting Boglione: «A quality would be, for example, the
ability to evaluate, because you have to make a decision
anyway. So you need to evaluate correctly. But before this
quality it is necessary to have a clear vision of what could
happen, including the possibility that you might not hit the
target».
In the end the problem of our dramatic times is all there:
the great assumption that everything depends from us,
that everything can be controlled and that the presumed
supremacy of technology and its possibilities is the only
justification for our actions. Making an entrepreneur
a legendary figure as a Nietzschian hero is misleading,
because enterprise defines every man and woman: marrying,
having children, improving one’s working status even if as
an employee, studying, or buying a house by getting into
debt is in this sense an enterprise, that is, risking to build a
greater common good. The alternative is our contemporary
unemotional sterility maybe peddled with the theoretical
notion that everything can be rented without owning
anything. In the parable of talents he who buries his own
because he is afraid of losing it, in the end loses himself,
that is, he destroys a potential value infinitely greater than
that of talent alone.
In reconstructing the tok operation the main factor that
determined its success was the team working with Marco
Boglione. Assigned roles and related responsibilities, sharing
risks and motivation, and everyone’s own personal sacrifice,
highlight another intangible aspect of an entrepreneur’s
205
the archetypal entrepreneur
success: the ability to organize and motivate not just
one’s own work but the work of all those collaborating.
Many entrepreneurs and top managers build successful
businesses they then destroy because they make them
into projections of themselves: their collaborators are just
executors, assistant managers have no real responsibility
and the organization is conceived as a radial model with
single vectors converging on a sole fulcrum animating it.
Many companies have gone down because, after
expanding, the owner could no longer drive the business
keeping everything in sight, yet still expected to continue to
do so thus becoming an obstacle to growth. No organization
can prosper in time (and a business is an organization)
irrespective of the human factor. Once again it is not an
abstract or idealistic principle but a “critical factor” for
the success of the organization itself, because it exploits
that formidable drive towards creativity and improvement,
and thus creation of value, i.e. the freedom of someone
operating to achieve a shared goal. This freedom is not
abstract but it must be measured with responsibility and
rules. At one point in the book’s afterword Boglione
says: «It would’ve certainly been easy to think I’d wander
around with a boat when I still didn’t have so many people
depending on me. But I must also think of those working
with me (…) They’re my colleagues (…) I am also friends
with some of them (…) But our working relationship is
still based on hierarchy». And then later: «I am the head
designer. Not because I’m me, but because no entrepreneur
can risk delegating one of the fundamental aspects of the
business to someone invested with less responsibility».
These sentences summarize a successful management
model: a dynamic and adaptive balance between managing
and delegating. In the end, the first risk an entrepreneur has
to face is related to choosing the people he will work with.
206
slowly please, i’m in a hurry
Another issue raised in the book relates to competition on
the market and competitiveness as a condition for the survival of the business. The 2009 has been the bicentenary
of the birth of Charles Darwin. His most quoted work
(which does not mean his best known), The Origin of Species,
has been reduced to the easy concept that natural selection
ensures the survival of the strongest individual.
What Darwin expounded is an interpretational factor of
an aspect of reality (the extinction of some species and
the evolution of others over time), but the 20th century’s
ideological mechanism absorbed it and applied it to organizations and markets. In the end it is the same old dream:
to find a factor, a formula explaining the whole of reality
in a deterministic manner (in this the greatest 20th century
ideological systems, Marxism-Leninism above all, are a lot
closer to Gnosticism than science). Vice versa, reality cannot be made to fit into this pattern and requires an adequate
method of analysis for each of its different aspects.
In the case of organizations and markets the Latin
etymology of the verb «to compete» is to reach a goal
togeher (cum pètere) and not to annihilate the other. Applying
this concept to organizations and more in general to society
as a whole, is not an issue of a priori morality (you must be
good) but one of efficiency and effectiveness in using the
human capital.
A business exarcebating inside competition, thinking it
will thus select the best and drop the rest, encourages predatory and opportunistic behaviour in the winners: «Today
it’s me, tomorrow another… better concentrate on short
term results and take stock options and bonuses». These
concepts are dramatically well documented by the current
crisis. This kind of business also destroys human capital
because the “losers” also have a wealth of knowledge and
experience that will be wasted or under-exploited.
On the other hand a business defining a system of values
207
the archetypal entrepreneur
rewarding the best and providing a chance to renew professional qualifications to those who want to become the
best, even taking on different activities and not necessarily
within the business itself, is by comparison a lot harder and
a greater challenge of the first because it requires people to
feel personal responsibility towards this system of values,
and is much more effective and efficient because it maximises organizational leverage.
Within the business and market system annihilating the
competition almost never brings lasting benefits: there is
no certainty that clients will be willing to buy products and
services from the winner, the “loser’s” technologies and
human resources are dispersed creating opportunities for
new entries, the economies of scale expected by purchasing stock shares are often deceptive, especially when the
“loser’s” products and services cannot be immediately replaced by the winner’s. Imagine if Marco Boglione, instead
of risking his own fsm in buying mct and then BasicNet
in buying up the Superga and K-Way brands, had thought
of manufacturing t-shirts, shoes and sportswear to conquer the niche in the market left vacant by his competitors.
Probably we would not be reading this book, no one would
remember these brands and the 213 people of those days
would not have had the opportunity to use their know-how
and skills within a new company. In not so many words it
would have been a waste of resources and a loss for the
market.
The example of our productive districts shows that
a network-based system where one is at the same time
a competitor and a partner is a lot more resilient to
technological and market changes if compared to the single
nodes it is made of. A district has a greater and longer
lasting creation of value if compared to that generated by
single businesses moving by themselves.
BasicNet itself is a network-based business, as defined
208
slowly please, i’m in a hurry
by Marco Boglione, its business model is based on the mutual interests of «entrepreneurs each providing a stage of
activity in the clothing industry’s pipeline» (what is called
in game theory a «win-win» that is a model, a behaviour, a
set of interactions, an economic transaction where all the
single players profit if they play by the rules).
I would like to close with a nod to Marco Boglione’s other
great intuition: the potential of icts (information and
communication technologies) applied to organizations as
a competitive advantage (it was the beginning of the 80s).
It is an issue deserving of a book in itself, but let us just
state that the circulation and spread of data in real time,
linear processes, the adaptive ubiquity of a business that
must reinvent itself and create new products every season,
are on the one hand BasicNet’s distinctive characteristics,
but that every business will have to become “basic” to
guarantee its future.
Marco Boglione became a great entrepreneur also because he was humble enough to learn from the teachers he
met during his life. Be wary of self-made men: those who
have never loyally followed someone else in their lives will
never be true leaders; dictators perhaps, but certainly not
entrepreneurs.
209
Thanks to
Roberta Cantaluppi
Franco Grassi
INDEX
foreword – A corrispondence
A friendship
6
7
part i – What we care about
The trail
To the young
The risk of endeavour
10
11
14
17
part ii
– Where an entrepreneur is born
The origins
A tantrum, a fish, and my first contract
Tales of grandfathers and children
Entrepreneurial roots
Far from home
The red bow
21
22
27
30
37
42
50
– On the path of destiny
Driven by desire
A decisive encounter
A change of gear
From the factory to New York
A brand new company
A little mishap along the way
53
54
56
59
62
68
71
part iii
The decline
An entrepreneur at last
76
80
part iv – Building, listening to yourself
Waiting
Love/1
Love/2
Starting from scratch
The first strategic partner… and we’re off!
A nasty surprise
85
86
88
93
95
102
109
part v – An amazing adventure
“Mission impossible”
Take Over Kappa
Take-off
Banzai!
The final charge
Taking over the factory
The Stendhal syndrome
The foundations of our new enterprise
The auction
113
114
119
121
126
132
138
141
145
150
part vi – An endless battle
Corso Brescia 86
Deflecting the attack
Congratulations, mamma Dani!
How do you revamp a tired brand?
How a product is born
Towards the Stock Exchange
The objective drifts away
The time of K-Way and Superga
China
A new frontier
A safe journey on a stormy sea
153
154
157
160
162
165
168
175
180
184
188
190
afterword – Slowly please, I’m in a hurry
Accepting fear
194
195
– The archetypal entrepreneur
204
blog