Enrico Cuccia (24 November 1907 – 23 June 2000) was an Italian banker, who was the first and long-term president of Mediobanca SpA, the Milan-based investment bank, and a significant figure in the history of capitalism in Italy.[1]
Early life and education
Cuccia was born into a Sicilian family in Rome on 24 November 1907.[2][3][4] He was of Arbereshe origin.[5] His family was Catholic.[6] His father was a senior civil servant at the finance ministry.[7] In 1930, Enrico Cuccia received a law degree.[7]
In 1946, Cuccia was appointed president of Mediobanca when it was founded.[9][10] Subsequently, he was the first head of the bank, which was initially named as Banca di Credito Finanziaro.[1] In 1982, he retired from the board of Mediobanca and was given the title of honorary president.[11][12]Antonio Maccanico succeeded him in the post.[13] Cuccia kept an office at the bank until his death in 2000.[3]
Cuccia also served as a personal adviser of the Agnelli family.[7] However, their alliance ended at the end of the 1990s.[14]
Activities
Cuccia shaped the Italian company patterns until 1992 when a bill became effective in order to encourage the privatization of state-owned companies and banks.[15] He was the major contributor to the merge of Montecatini and Edison into Montedison, which occurred in 1966.[16] The merger was the first reorganisation of the chemical industry.[7] He was also instrumental in Olivetti's takeover of Telecom Italia in 1999.[16][17] In addition to these much more visible activities, he "was the principal dealmaker (and breaker) in the secretive world of large private Italian capitalism."[18]
Personal life
Cuccia married Idea Nuova Socialista (meaning New Socialist Idea in English) Beneduce and had three children, two daughters and a son.[11][19] They had known each other since high school and got married in 1939.[15] Cuccia's spouse was the daughter of Alberto Beneduce, the founder and president of the IRI.[20]
Death and burial
Cuccia underwent an operation for prostate cancer in April 2000.[11] He died at the Monzino Foundation cardiological center in Milan on 23 June 2000 at the age of 92.[16] After a private funeral ceremony on 24 June, he was buried in the family graveyard in his villa in Meina, a village beside Lake Maggiore.[21][22][23] His body was laid under the body of his wife.[6]
However, Cuccia's corpse was stolen on 18 March 2001.[6][24] The thieves sent a letter, demanding a ransom of $3.5 million to be paid to a foreign bank account.[25] The corpse was found on a mountainside near Turin, and two men arrested in relation to the incident at the end of March.[26][27] They were convicted and given a suspended sentence in December 2001.[26]
Legacy and personality
The square where the head offices of Mediobanca are located in Milan was named after Enrico Cuccia in September 2000.[28] In 1998, Global Finance magazine regarded him as one of the 600 most powerful financial players in the world.[29]
Cuccia never gave interviews and was not commonly seen in public despite his huge influence on the country's finance system.[19] He was interested in philosophy, mysticism and the work of James Joyce.[10]
According to the Italian historian of Freemasonry Aldo Alessandro Mola, Cuccia was initiated to the highest degree of the Gran Loggia d'Italia.[30] Given that Cuccia was the son-in-law of Alberto Beneduce, a Master Mason, since 1906[31] and the Primo Gran Sorvegliante of the Grand Orient of Italy during the presidency of Ernesto Nathan this view becomes more reliable.
^ abVera Zamagni (2009). "Governing the Italian economy: a comparative perspective". Journal of Modern Italian Studies. 14 (1): 46–51. doi:10.1080/13545710802642883. S2CID145770682.
