Ciao Gianni, what a pleasure to have you here on Hotpot Italia. I'm really happy, it's a pleasure. Today we'll have a nice chat. I'll ask you some questions about your personal and professional journey, as well as about your daily life, aspects that sometimes don't emerge from the many interviews you give. Are you ready?
Great, then let's start by breaking the ice and talk about food. What's your comfort food, the thing that makes you feel at ease, a treat you say, 'Eh, today I really deserve it, I'll indulge'? Tortellini with cream?
Ah, you see, tortellini with cream, delicious. Not in broth, because I'm a big fan of tortellini in broth? No, no, broth is sad, it makes me sad. Really with cream. Okay, okay. Can you cook them? Yes, yes, I cooked them the day before yesterday. I love, love, love them.
Instead, going back to the past, let's talk about little Gianni. In your opinion, if you had the chance to go back and see little Gianni, let's say at 15, would he be proud of you? What would he say to you? What kind of path did he want to take?
But I was so lucky that at 15 I never would have thought I would have created what I created over time. So I had my scooter, I was happy. In fact, I remember that at 14, on the very day I turned 14, I went with all my money, even the coins, to Moto Morini in Rome to buy my scooter. So my happiness at that moment was that thing. Honestly, I didn't think about the future, I thought about having fun, doing what a 14- or 15-year-old boy does. But certainly I never would have thought I'd be here today, or that I'd have done the interviews I've done, or created this wonderful group that, somehow, with the great luck I've had, came together. Yes, yes.
Because then we also talk about Tip, the companies you've invested in, the beautiful projects you do. You said you're from Rome, but I'd like to know... now you're from Rome, you live in Milan, you're always traveling around the world, because earlier you told us you travel a lot for work. But I'd like to ask you: if you could drop everything, okay, drop everything and go do something else, in this scenario, what would you go do? But above all, where would you go do it? So drop everything, go do that, who knows, and where would you go do it?
But I'm already doing it, in the sense that I, by chance, a few years ago... We have a beautiful house in Sardinia, and by chance I saw near this house a ruin of a half-finished house that no one was building, no one was finishing. And every time I came home I saw it standing there. I said, 'I'd like to buy it, renovate it, actually tear it down and rebuild it, etc., etc.' I managed to buy it, I tore down a large part, I rebuilt it. And among other things, the luck was that during Covid I had an excuse to go to Sardinia to Liscia di Vacca, the place where I have this house, and so I played the foreman a bit, with the company's permit I went there and got distracted. Wow, I enjoyed it so much that now I've bought others, renovated others, built others from scratch. So my game these days is: if I were to dream of a life without... like a life of play, it would be to continue that path. Always in Sardinia? Or would you always want to be in Sardinia, always in those places, because you get attached to places, then you have your businesses, your suppliers, the people who help you. So yes, yes, I would continue there. And instead of doing 90% work and family in Milan and around, and 10% Sardinia as a bed-and-breakfast owner, I'd do a bit more. I love it, love it.
And what do you like about Sardinia?
But I like building. My grandfather wanted me to be an engineer. Okay, I never did that, even though in many projects, many companies, we have built very beautiful, very interesting projects together. And the idea, for example today I checked the status of a construction site I have there, and they're finishing the excavations. I can't wait for them to tell me, 'The excavations are done, come see,' because then I'll see this hole from which this new house will be born, which I designed practically on my own, copying from Pinterest a project I had seen a long time ago. There, these are my games, my joys, my things that, beyond a beautiful family and a beautiful job, fill my life and make me a truly satisfied person. Cool.
So you look at projects on Pinterest? Yes, yes, yes, interiors, exteriors, pools, gardens, everything. You create your moodboard and play with it. Fantastic, fantastic. But now let's get back to us, to slightly more finance-oriented questions. No, actually still related to your path, because obviously you are founder, president, CEO of Tip, Tambour Investment Partner, an Italian industrial group with various companies you've invested in. Among other things, it's very interesting that your investor approach goes against the grain of classic finance and private equity. Um, but going back a bit to the question of when you were young, since we saw when you were a child, 15 years old, now let's do first year of university. What job did you want to do when you graduated? When you started your university path?
But first of all, I started working long before university. At 11 or 12, I already went to a tobacconist in a place where we spent summer vacations and sold cigarettes, I stood at the counter selling cigarettes. Then during school, the last years, during Christmas vacations I sold ski boots. I had set up a small advertising agency with four friends. I mean, I always had a series of desires to do things. I really like doing. First year of university, besides these two small jobs I had, I attended enough. Then I realized that honestly it wasn't worth attending much, and I started working seriously. So from the end of my first year of university, I started working, working at a consulting firm. And I understood at that moment that basically Italy has three pillars to play on: enormous savings, undercapitalized companies, and financial markets not worthy of today's Italy. And I started dreaming of something that would bring these things together. And so during university, with my thesis, with the work I was lucky enough to do later, I began to elaborate on what could be done to fill these three gaps. Okay.
And if you look at your past, what is one thing you learned from the small jobs you did, with your friends as an advertising agency or selling cigarettes at the tobacconist? That is, what are some things you took away from those experiences?
Be simple, talk little, listen a lot, and be direct to the point. I think... in recent years much more, but also many years ago, when I studied, there was a lot of chit-chat, everyone talking over each other, everyone telling you how it should be done. I hear little lectures every day. I try never to give little lectures, but to be very productive, very concrete. And one of the first things I learned, very useful for my work: take a company's balance sheet, three items. Not a detailed analysis with percentages, with variances, all that stuff is useless. All that at university they teach you to break down a balance sheet into 48 pieces, it was useless to me. Be simple. Okay, what are these three items? So: assets are receivables, inventory, and other; liabilities are capital, debts, and other; and the income statement: revenues, margins, profit. Perfect. Okay, very clear.
And instead, let's talk... because earlier we were having a chat about many topics. I wanted to ask you: everyone talks about the secrets to success, what you need to do to achieve success, to avoid mistakes. But I'll turn the question around: what are the mistakes you need to make, in your opinion?
I don't know. So, everyone says that whoever is lucky enough to start a startup that then doesn't go well gets such a strong lesson that it gives you an incredible boost for your future. There, maybe the answer from before: don't be complicated, be simple, don't get lost in chatter, don't get lost in a thousand elaborations of the problem. Let me give an example: we are 15 people, including everyone in the office, and we have 30 holdings. The true value of the group is about 3 billion, but on the stock market they value us unfortunately much less because at the moment companies like ours are not in fashion. However, we have quite incredibly managed to create something relatively large for the Italian system with few people, with few insights, always getting to the point. I believe that this is truly the secret: have ideas, right or wrong, and try to pursue them to the end. Okay, okay.
Instead, let's say you invest in many companies. There are certainly some that are your favorites. Tell me a bit. More than that, either your favorite companies or particularly interesting projects you've done. Earlier we talked about OVS, Interpump, Moncler. A project, and I'd like you to also associate a particular, fun episode that made it special, that made it wow.
Well, in life you go through periods. Then someone over 70 like me has clearly lived through many things. So I think it's right to answer this question with what is now my wow project, or at least the one I'm putting the most head into, more time, more passion than the others. I tend to put passion a little everywhere, and I think you can tell from how I talk, how I express myself, etc. But it's the Dex Clans project. For example, it's one of the few cases in my life, perhaps the only one of a certain level, where I decided to change the name. This company was called Italian Design Brands until a year ago, which in my opinion meant nothing. It was a project born from a more financial, aggregative perspective, not a long-term strategic one, which was supposed to express and must express elegance, luxury, design, high-quality furniture. We studied with experts for a long time how to change the name, how to give a connotation from the start to the company we listed on the stock exchange a little over a year ago, that would immediately explain what was inside. And we changed the name. So in my opinion, a very courageous episode, because changing the name of a listed company is a big mess. Because aside from the technical aspects I won't go into, changing people's philosophy, etc., is really complicated. There, in this project I'm putting a lot of time, passion, desire. Clearly it all comes from a passion for houses, construction, furniture, lights, making very beautiful things. Absolutely, I mentioned OVS: I think I made a not-small contribution to the change OVS has undergone in recent years, becoming a multibrand reality, making stores much more beautiful than before, creating a model that is no longer what OVS was originally born to be, i.e., price: 'You come here and find the right price,' maybe in underwear, maybe in pajamas, etc., etc. I thought with the CEO, a very talented person who truly gave his soul and continues to give his soul to this company, that it should become a world of total look for men, women, kids, etc., so that we could do something truly different, truly unique. We have 1,500 stores, a monstrous capital to exploit much better, and not for price, because where are you? If I give you the right things, if you enter a store you like, you're happy and you buy. Very clear, very clear.
And now let's move a bit more to the personal aspect and your family. I'd like to ask you what is the most important lesson you wanted to share with your family, your children, your daughters, and also the lesson they have given you during this journey that is life.
Well, my children give me a lot, because children are a comparison. Children are one of the most ruthless comparisons you can have. Because at work, especially if you've been lucky, I've been lucky, everyone tells you you're great, everyone tells you you're the best, i.e., flattery at every street corner every day, even too much. Children don't. Children tell you: 'Dad, look what you did, look what you could do, look you say this word too much, look you say that one too little, look honestly you're not around enough for us.' So I try to give, but probably a more normal, nicer parent would do more with them, spend more time with them. So certainly they have taught me a lot, they have taught me to be a bit more self-critical, to be a bit more attentive to what to do and what not to do. And perhaps it should be asked of them what I could have done more or what I did or didn't do. Okay.
But don't you feel you have brought a lesson? That is, among the various things, what is perhaps a piece of advice, a suggestion you have given that has proven relevant for them?
Be simple, be direct, get to the point. That is, the things I just said, in my opinion, should be said especially in the family, because the people closest to you are not... on the contrary, they must hear the things you are particularly convinced of. So I believe the advice I tried to give them is to not get lost in chatter, to waste little time on too many social media, and to go do things. There, I believe I am a person who has shown that doing is important, more than talking, more than doing other things. Then someone asks me: 'How did you manage to write all the books you've written, or the hundreds of interviews, or the hundreds of articles, many of them without a name, because I couldn't always do everything in the spotlight?' And I wrote a few hundred press articles but my name wasn't on them. So I did these things because I enjoy giving, communicating, opening up. I am not part of that Milanese, London, New York finance that is closed in its palaces, that makes privacy the ultimate in life. I believe that true confrontation with young people, less young people, etc., is the thing that enriches you the most. So I am here, happy to be here. Tomorrow I'm happy to do other things. I write books that I publish, that I give to everyone with great serenity. But not out of presumption, because I'm convinced I'm better than others, but because I think it's right that someone who has been so lucky should give contributions in all forms: from chatting to conversation, to interviews, to long talks, to books, to testimony, to help with theses, etc. Okay, absolutely.
