Giovanni Tamburi 💼 il re della finanza in Italia

Privatizing Enel is unconstitutional. Privatizing Enel? Are you crazy? You have 8.5% of something that has an intrinsic value of about 3 billion, today on the stock market it's at 1.7, 1.6, 1.8 billion. That's already great for me. I never thought when I left Sapienza that I would create something so important. Those who say that listing is complicated don't know what they're talking about. The stock market listing of a company is a starting point, never an ending point.

I am Roman. I studied in Rome at university. I graduated with 110 cum laude in Economics and Commerce. Shortly after graduation, I was called by a family friend, one of those you can't say no to, and I came to Milan. I was already working because after the first year of economics I realized it wasn't particularly difficult, so in the three out of four years of university I had already worked, small things, an advertising agency, some consulting. In '77, finished university, did military service, came to Milan reluctantly because I was fine in Rome, I had a nice house, a nice motorcycle, a girlfriend, everything. In which area of Rome? Via Mazzini, Via Settembrini. Very reluctantly because I said, 'I'm fine here, why are they taking me away?' But I let myself be tempted by this adventure. This person wanted me to join him in Cogefar, a construction company. Actually, shortly after I joined him in Cogefar, he was appointed vice president of Bastoggi. In those three years I was with them, I dealt much more with Bastoggi than with Cogefar. What did Bastoggi mean? A huge financial company with an enormous portfolio of holdings, in great difficulty, so it sold one company a month to pay salaries. An incredible experience, 20 hours a day of work, sometimes 24, skipped lunches, skipped dinners. An exceptional master, in the sense that the general director of both Cogifer and Bastoggi was named Nanni Fabris, who taught me everything. A very junior role, but front office, I spoke directly with the boss, I dealt directly with these things, and it went very well. I did truly exceptional things.

In the last of the years I was there, I was contacted by Euromobiliare, which at the time was already a very important merchant bank. They asked, 'Is there someone at Bastoggi capable of taking responsibility for the M&A function that needs to be born here at Euromobiliare?' I said, 'Look, at Bastoggi we are three cats, so I can inquire, but there is no one.' A few months pass, I clearly don't give any names, also because we were really four cats. The gentlemen from Euromobiliare call me again and say, 'Why don't you come? We'll pay for courses around Europe, you invest in us and we invest in you.' These very kind gentlemen paid for courses in Paris, Lausanne, wherever I wanted to go, I went, and I took all kinds of courses. I started the M&A sector of Euromobiliare.

I was very lucky. In 10 years at Euromobiliare, I went from a young assistant who had to set up the M&A sector to general director of the whole group, head of investment banking, together with Guido Roberto Vitale and Alberto Milla, the two great historical heads of Euromobiliare. I carried forward this very beautiful project. At this point, how old was I? 36. 36 years old, already general director, head of M&A investment banking and general director of the whole Euromobiliare group. At that time, Euromobiliare had become international, in the sense that Midland Bank had bought Euromobiliare and then Midland Bank was bought by Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank. I was sent to London for a year to gain experience with the English. Because clearly, being at the top of the Italian group, I had to be part of this international group. And there I realized that I was becoming a bit of a pawn in the hands of this international group, first English, then Anglo-Chinese. I didn't like that much, also because they wanted to invest a lot in me as a young person and other young people, by stabbing the two great old men of the company in the back. I didn't feel like stabbing those who had valued me over time. So one fine day I decided to leave without having anything. I had no job alternative, I hadn't been called by anyone else, I had been called but there was nothing that attracted me. Incidentally, Guido Vitale, when he learned I was leaving, was certainly convinced that I was going to someone. I told him, 'I assure you, I'm not going anywhere. I'm retiring, I'll do some reflection, write some books, etc.' So much so that he paid me for a few months even though I wasn't there, because he said, 'But your family, how will you manage?' I had earned very well, so I had no problems, but he very kindly accompanied me with at least 6 months of salary, half salary, but anyway he accompanied me.

It was a rather particular animal, very articulated. There were insurance, the SIM brokerage part, the research and studies part, the investment banking part, also the real estate part. There was really a lot of stuff. Since it was an important period for acquisitions, M&A, etc., that part had gone particularly well. So this meant that in reality my sector was one of the most driving. Simply doing the accounts at the end of the year, one of the areas that earned the most money and that made Euromobiliare earn a lot in terms of prestige was M&A. I found myself in a very fortunate situation of being there, and also the great bosses were smart to believe that I could be a person who summarized a bit the skills to manage private banking, the SIM, it was really a bit articulated, and so they gave me this chance.

I started writing some books on finance and acquisitions. I wrote one of the first books in Italy on stock options. I have always been a fanatic of the motivations and methods of involving managers in shareholding. There were no options for managers, they were very rare, especially in Italy. It was more American, considered from much more evolved worlds. Even today, perhaps it's too little. Serious companies all have it, it's a choice of individual entrepreneurs, individual managers to give one type of agreement rather than another. I got in touch with the university in Rome, Luiss, I knew some people, they gave me a chair at the master's they were founding in Castellanza, Liuc Cattaneo University. And since I knew Marco Vitale and Flavio Sottrici, who were two founders, I told them, 'I would like to come here even for free to teach something. I think I have done something.' Immediately they also gave me an assignment.

I have always enjoyed the relationship with young people, teaching. It was quite curious that I also wanted to write books when finance, even more so at the time, was reserved, closed salons, all very closed worlds. The books, how did you publish them? I published them myself because I didn't want to waste time with publishers. I created a study center, among other things, the Study Center on Privatizations and Corporate Governance. Talking about corporate governance in the year 90 was something that made people say, 'This guy is crazy.' I did the little book on privatizations and corporate governance, it was certainly a pioneering thing. So I published it myself with this study center. I hired a very good person who followed the more academic, more theoretical part, then I wrote articles, traveled around the world looking for ideas and information. The other luck of that period was that since I had been in England during the time when Thatcher was doing many privatizations, one day the phone rang and a certain Professor Cappugi called me. He said, 'You don't remember me, but at a dinner in London talking about privatizations, I was next to you. Now Giuliano Amato, the Prime Minister, has given me the task of creating the privatization commission. The Italian government would like you to give a hand because here everyone talks about privatizations but no one knows what they are.' So after 23 months of being alone in my little office in Milan, I left for Rome and began this adventure of privatizations at the Ministry of the Treasury. At the time it was called the brief window of the author professor. How long did it last? About a year. In that year I dedicated myself a lot to privatizations. I was in Rome at the Ministry of the Treasury with Giuliano Amato, Professor Cappugi, a commission of professors of the highest level who were all very worried. 'Privatizing Enel is unconstitutional. Enel? Are you crazy?' We did it and it worked well.

Yes, not only was it a real job, but among other things, the Ministry of the Treasury at the time did not provide for bank transfers, so at the end of the month you presented yourself at the counter office of the Ministry of the Treasury and they gave you, I don't remember how much now, but anyway money in banknotes and coins. It was another salary, at the Ministry it was very low, it was ridiculous, but it was that little fun thing. And I liked this role of being a commissioner of exceptional weight. I won't name names because some are still alive and still very famous, so I'll avoid it. But certainly people of the highest level. Anyway, a fundamental historical moment: the privatization of the great companies. We wrote Law 35, or rather Luigi Cappugi, Matelda Grassi, who was a lawyer within this commission, and I, against, quote-unquote, almost all the others, wrote Law 35, which is the one that liberalized Enel and then the various privatizations of IRI, so Banca Commerciale Italiana, Credito Italiano. Immense fun, especially for someone like me who loved M&A, loved these things, but was also intellectually stimulated to say, let's do something for the country system, for this particular world in which there are enormous savings, asphyxiated markets, a state patrimony not sufficiently valorized. In the last months of this year, some sirens started ringing from people who were my clients when I was at Euromobiliare.

Because I was a well-off guy who had this project in mind, and we did a few years of pure M&A, assistance for acquisitions, stock market listings, sales, mergers. Excellent success there too, because the circle of friends worked quite well. Was it the legal part or just advisory on how to do it? Legal, zero. We were purely financial advisors. Among other things, perhaps in that first year I wrote yet another book, 'Buying a Company: How and Why', which incidentally was published by Sperling & Kupfer, which for me was an incredible success, if nothing else to have such a prestigious publishing house decide to publish my book. I believe it was the first book in Italy on acquisitions, and I inaugurated this season of acquisitions done professionally, not with the friendly broker, the accountant, the saint. What operations did you do in those early years? We did all the operations for Raul Gardini and Giulio Malgara, Acqua Levissima with San Pellegrino, then sold to Nestlé. How did you recover clients? The clients were a bit those who were born at Euromobiliare before and who had remained fond, then word of mouth, that's what works. The Milan of yesterday, today, and I believe also tomorrow is word of mouth. Three, four, five smart, fast guys, they follow you well, 20 hours a day, and help you complete your operation.

First two, then three, then four, then five. The more I did these operations, the more I realized that in Italy there was a lack of an operator with the characteristics of a minority investor, without leverage, without resorting to funds. Because funds by definition mean that you buy today but tomorrow you have to sell, otherwise they are not private equity, those who in 3 years have to make profits. I buy for the very long term. I buy for the very long term, at the limit I never sell, I create wealth. This operator was missing, and at a certain point I launched the idea of doing this thing. I launched it with four friends, among other things people I had worked with for M&A in that period, and the thing was received quite well. So much so that it was January 2001, we went to the notary in March 2001, we were 56 to subscribe the capital. I didn't want banks, I didn't want institutions, I didn't want anyone heavy or important because I had the small or great presumption that no one would give me a lesson on how to do this job. So who were they? Entrepreneurs, families. Entrepreneurs, families, those who are still many shareholders today. How much did you raise? About fifty million euros, so it went better than expected, and we started, first with the more technological part. In the sense that first of all because we thought we would raise much less. Obviously I promised, 'One day we will go public because I don't do a fund, I don't want to do what in 3 years buys and sells, but I have to give you liquidity. So I promised that within 5 years this little thing of little value we would take public. So if someone wants to liquidate, they sell their shares on the market, all free.' It's a bit like Warren Buffett's mentality. In theory yes, but anyway, he is good and we are good guys. This idea was born, we started. We listed after 4 years. The listing went very well, the families arrived at more than 100 at the time of listing. Satisfaction at that moment was that Kairos, Herel, many very important asset management institutions entered our capital, so it was a great satisfaction as well.

My detractors say that I would list even the bar across the street on Via Pontaccio. Actually, it's a little true. I believe that if Google, Microsoft, Amazon and company are listed, it means that listing has some utility. So I had set it as a must: first, to return to my investors by keeping a promise, keeping a commitment; second, because I seriously believed that the market could be the best response to an initiative that was innovative for the time, so particular, so atypical compared to everything else. Was it complicated? Those who say that listing is complicated don't know what they're talking about. It's clear that you have to make a very articulated, very detailed information prospectus, but everything can be done. Also because, in my opinion, the stock market listing of a company is a starting point, never an ending point. If you are convinced that that starting point can take you far, those details, bureaucracies, hurdles, you solve them, you do it without any problem. Initially, we wanted to do more the technological part, 2001.com, we wanted to ride that wave a bit tactically. So we started, but then quickly we realized that we were more suited to helping the companies we had worked with for M&A in the previous 20 years, and so we quickly moved to medium-sized companies, growing companies, companies capable of making acquisitions. Not on the tech startup, which by definition is a bit fragile.

The most important of the older ones was Interpump. We entered about 23 years ago in Interpump by doing a club deal, which 23 years ago was a new, almost revolutionary thing. On the other hand, I liked the idea of acquiring from a private equity fund a stake. The company had been listed on the stock exchange, the stake had remained quite important, the fund wanted to sell but didn't want to place it on the market. I acquired it together with five or six important families who had joined us at the time, and we created this club deal holding. That operation was certainly the important one of that era. Then we did many others later.

I have always had, since university and the thesis I did, the feeling that this country was overflowing with savings, with many beautiful undercapitalized companies, and with inadequate financial markets, not very American. We are very little American. So my dream was to say, why not give a small hand to create a small nucleus of listed or to-be-listed companies in a market that must grow. Because the market of the Italian entrepreneur, he does everything, passes the company to his son. If the son is good, the company goes forward; if the son is not good, the company stops. That was too narrow for me.