Home » Farewell to Calisto Tanzi, between football and the great Parmalat crash

Farewell to Calisto Tanzi, between football and the great Parmalat crash

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Calisto Tanzi, protagonist of one of the most glittering and controversial parables in the world of Italian entrepreneurship, died at the age of 83. A long rise, which began in the 1960s, studded with industrial and sporting successes and then the fall, between financial chasms and processes, ended in the worst way in 2003 with the Parmalat crash.

In Collecchio, on the outskirts of Parma, where he was born on November 17, ’38, for decades the name of Tanzi has been associated with the concept of miracle: something extraordinary, very strongly desired and built through work but above all the ability to ” see the future, transforming dreams and intuitions into reality. In his pocket an accountancy diploma, at the age of 22 Tanzi takes over the small family business founded by his grandfather and carried on by his father. Preserves, cured meats and little more. He decides to expand the company’s activities by combining them with a dairy and a pasteurization plant. It is 1961: Dietalat is born and grows quickly, thanks to a rigorous door-to-door sales policy. Within a year, the future Parmalat already has a turnover of over 200 million a year.

From “O so o Pomì” to the crac, this is how Tanzi had built his empire


Tanzi is not satisfied, he wants more: he travels the world in search of new experiences and ideas. South Africa, Australia, Colombia, Portugal. In a small shop in Stockholm he discovers a new way of packaging milk: no more glass or plastic but layers of compressed paper, capable of guaranteeing the freshness of the product in the best possible way. The Tetra Pak. The investment in innovative packaging and the development of the UHT process, to make milk with a long shelf life, are the fortune of Parmalat which never stops expanding, in Italy and in the world. In 1975, the company’s turnover exceeded 100 billion.

From the archive – Interview with Tanzi: “I’ll tell you my story”

The name of Calisto Tanzi forcefully enters the elite of Italian and international entrepreneurship, big finance opens its doors to him as well as the world of politics with the Christian Democrats of Ciriaco De Mita, of which he becomes a personal friend: he opens a factory in Nusco , sponsors Avellino football and buys a package of local televisions, which brings together under the syndication Euro Tv. He loves television, as well as advertising with which he manages to dramatically increase the popularity of the Parmalat brand by tying it to sports names such as Gustav Thöni , Ingemar Stenmark and Niki Lauda. But it will be TV, with its costs and its difficult revenues, one of the first and perhaps underestimated “cracks” in the walls of his fabulous castle. The partnership with the Acqua Marcia group and the birth of Italia 7, then Odeon TV, unable to compete with the private giant of Silvio Berlusconi, Mediaset, will be of no use.

Il Gioiellino, the story of the Parmalat crash and Calisto Tanzi told in a film


Diversify. The watchword engraved in the mind of Calisto Tanzi brings his gaze to the world of sport. We are in the early 90s and with the stock market listing the entrepreneur buys Parma Calcio, newly promoted to Serie A, and launches it to the sound of millions towards unimaginable goals at the time. Three Italian Cups arrive, an Italian Super Cup, two Uefa Cups, a European Super Cup and a Cup Winners’ Cup thanks to good players but above all to the genius of Nevio Scala, technical worker and visionary just like its president, and Carlo Ancelotti.

The Tanzi treasure auction, including a Picasso worth over 2 million euros


The beginning of the end came at the end of the 90s, with the acquisition of Eurolat of Sergio Cragnotti’s Cirio group for 700 billion lire. Many, too many, but essential to allow Cragnotti to repay his debts with the Bank of Rome. The same debts and the same bank of Giuseppe Ciarrapico, patron of Acque Minerali, bought by Tanzi a few years later. Paying off debts by contracting debts. It cannot go on indefinitely. And so it is, as the super consultant Enrico Bondi makes it clear, called to an impossible consolidation of the accounts.

The empire crumbles, year after year, hand in hand with the credibility of the entrepreneur Calisto Tanzi: the President of the Republic Napolitano takes away from him the honor he had earned in 1984 with his amazing career, that of Cavaliere del Lavoro. On December 27, 2003, Tanzi was arrested and despite himself began the last, desperate adventure made up of trials, appeals and convictions. The latest in December 2010: 18 years for a 14 billion euro crash that hit like a boulder even on the skin of thousands and thousands of savers.

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