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, both about your personal and professional path, and also about your daily life, aspects that sometimes perhaps don't emerge from the many interviews you do. Are you ready?
Great, then first let's break the ice and actually talk about food. What is your comfort food, that thing that makes you feel at ease, a food reward that you say 'Eh, today I really deserve it, I treat myself with tortellini and cream.'
Ah, you see, tortellini with cream, delicious. Not in broth, because I'm a big fan of tortellini in broth? No no, broth makes me sad, really, with cream.
OK, would you be able to cook them?
Yes, yes, I cooked them the day before yesterday, I love them, I love them.
Instead, going back to the past, let's talk about young Gianni. In your opinion, if you had the chance to go back and see young 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 follow?
I have been so lucky that at 15 I would never have thought of creating what I have created over time. 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 the 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, about doing what a 14- or 15-year-old boy does. But certainly I would never have thought I would be here today, or have done the interviews I've done, or created this marvelous group that, with the great luck I've had, came to be.
Eh yes, eh yes, because then I also go on to tell about Tip, the companies you've invested in, the beautiful projects you do. You said you're from Rome, but now you're from Rome, you live in Milan, you always travel around the world, because earlier you told us you travel a lot for work. But I would like to ask you: if you could drop everything, OK, drop everything and go do something else, what would you do, and above all where would you do it? So, drop everything and go do that? Hmm, and where would you do it?
But I'm already doing that. In the sense that, by chance a few years ago, we have a nice house in Sardinia, and by chance I saw near this house a ruin of a half-built house that no one was building or finishing. Every time I came home I saw it sitting there. I said, I'd like to buy it, renovate it, actually tear it down and rebuild it, etc. I managed to buy it, tore down a large part, rebuilt it, and among other things the luck was that during COVID I had the excuse to go to Sardinia to Liscia di Vacca, the place where I have this house, so I played the foreman a bit, with the company's permission I went there and got distracted. 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 had 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 then you get attached to places.
Then you have your businesses, your suppliers, the people who help you, so yes, I would continue there, and instead of doing 90% work and family in Milan and around, and 10% Sardinia as a landlord, I would do a bit more.
I love it, I love it. And what do you like about Sardinia?
I like to build. My grandfather wanted me to become an engineer. OK, I never did, even though in many projects, many companies we have built together very beautiful and interesting projects. For example, today I looked at the state of a construction site that I have in the area, and they are finishing the excavations. I can't wait for them to tell me 'the excavations are finished, come see,' because then I see this hole from which this new house will be born, which I designed practically alone, copying from Pinterest a project I had seen a long time ago. So these are my games, my joys, the things that, beyond a beautiful family and a beautiful job, fill my life and make me a truly satisfied person.
Cool. So do you look at Pinterest for various projects?
Yes, yes, yes, interiors, exteriors, pools, gardens, everything. You create your moodboard and I play with it.
Fantastic, fantastic. But now let's get back to us, to questions slightly more finance-oriented? No, actually, still related to your path, because obviously you are the founder, president, CEO of Tip, Tamburi Investment Partners, an Italian industrial group with various companies. You have invested. Among other things, it's very interesting that your approach as an investor goes against the grain of classic finance and private equity. But returning a bit to the question of when you were young, 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 did you start your university path?
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 always had a series of desires to do things; I really like doing. First year of university, besides these two small jobs, I attended enough. Then I realized that honestly attending wasn't that necessary, and I started working seriously. From the end of my first year of university I started working in a consulting firm, and at that moment I began to understand 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. So during university, with my thesis, and then with the work I was lucky enough to do later, I started developing the theme of what could be done to fill these three gaps.
OK. And if you looked at your past, what is one thing you learned from the small jobs you did, with your friends like the advertising agency or selling cigarettes at the tobacconist? 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, but also many years ago when I studied, there was a lot of chatter, 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. One of the first things I learned that is extremely useful for my work: take a company's balance sheet, three items. Not a detailed analysis with percentages and variances, that's all useless. Everything they teach at university about splitting a balance sheet into 48 pieces was useless to me. Be simple. OK, what are these three items? Well, the assets are receivables, inventory, and other; the liabilities are equity, debts, and other; and the income statement is revenues, margins, profit. Perfect.
Perfect, OK, very clear. And instead, because 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 turn the question around: what are the mistakes you need to make, in your opinion?
I don't know. 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 them an incredible boost for the future. So perhaps 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. I 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 the stock market values us much less unfortunately because at this moment companies like ours are not in fashion. However, we have rather incredibly managed to create something relatively big for the Italian system with few people, few intuitions, always getting to the point. I believe that this is truly the secret: have ideas, whether right or wrong, and try to pursue them to the end.
OK, OK. And instead, let's say you invest in many companies. There are certainly some companies that are your favorites. Tell me about them, or about your favorite companies, or particularly interesting projects you've done. Earlier we talked about OVS, Interpump, Moncler. A project, and I would like you to associate a particular funny episode that made it special, that made it 'wow'.
Well, in life you go through periods. Someone who is over 70 like me has obviously lived many things. So I think it's right to answer that question with what is now my 'wow' project, at least the one I'm putting the most head into, more time, more passion than others. I tend to put passion a little everywhere, and I think you can tell from how I talk and express myself. But it's the project of Dex Clans, for example. It's one of the few cases in my life, maybe the only one of a certain level, where I decided to change the name of the company. This company was called, until a year ago, Italian Design Brands, which in my opinion meant nothing. It was a project born from a more financial, aggregative perspective rather than a very long-term strategic one, which had to 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 it was a very courageous episode, because changing the name of a listed company is quite a mess because, apart from the technical aspects I won't go into, changing people's philosophy etc. is really complicated. So in this project I am putting a lot of time, passion, and desire. Clearly it all comes from a passion for houses, construction, furniture, lighting, making very beautiful things. You mentioned OVS: I think I gave no small contribution to the change that OVS has undergone in recent years, becoming a multibrand reality, making much nicer stores, creating a model that is no longer what OVS was born to be, i.e., price: you come here and find the right price, maybe in underwear, pajamas, etc. I thought, together with the CEO, a brilliant person who really gave his soul and continues to give his soul to this company, that it had to become a world of total look for men, women, kids, etc., so that something truly different, truly unique could be done. We have 1500 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 where you are happy to enter, you are happy and you buy.
Very clear, very clear. And now let's move a bit more to the personal aspect and your family. I would like to ask you: what is the most important teaching that you wanted to share with your family, your children, your daughters? And also, in reality, the teaching that they gave you during this journey that is life.
Well, children give me a lot, because children are a confrontation. Children are one of the most ruthless confrontations you can have. Because at work, especially if you have been lucky, everyone tells you you're great, everyone tells you you're the best, flattery at every street corner every day, even too much. But children, no. Children tell you: 'Dad, you did this, you could do that, you say this word too much, you say that too little, honestly you are also 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 taught me to be a bit more self-critical, a bit more attentive to the things to do and not do. And perhaps it should be asked to them what I could have done more, or what I did or didn't do.
OK, but don't you feel you have perhaps brought a teaching? Among the various things, what is maybe a piece of advice, a suggestion that you happened to give and that has proven relevant for them as well?
