Milan has always struck me as a schizophrenic city, switching its personality according to the direction from which you approach it. Arriving from the north, it seems warm, colourful, animated and chaotic. But from the south, you find a city which feels cold, grey, sober and disciplined.
Certainly, it was the disciplined approach which Milan’s financial community was seeking to present to the world on my last visit. It was during the run-up to the privatisation of Eni, the state-owned chemicals and energy group which was then expected to raise over $6 bn, and everyone was toeing the line.
‘It is doing excellently,’ said Giovanni, the distinguished broker with whom I was having coffee. ‘The tranche reserved for Italian institutions is over- subscribed and there is a lot of demand from private investors.’
‘And what about overseas demand?’ I asked.
‘Well, of course, the roadshows are still happening. And we won’t know the outcome until the pricing. But the interest seems to be much greater than expected. Of course, there are a few worries about the political risk.’
‘Few worries’ struck me as being a slight understatement. We were talking about a country which had seen 54 governments in 50 years, and where ex-prime ministers were under indictment – not only for the standard charge of corruption but also for conspiracy to murder.
I took a sip from the minute amount of dark, oily liquid in the tiny cup in front of me and got an immediate buzz as the caffeine took over my system. Somehow espresso only works like that in Italy; they might use similar machines and beans in other locations, but the effect is never quite the same.
‘Is it true,’ I asked, ‘that the name-plates on the doors in the Senate are written in pencil?’ Giovanni said nothing but gave an expressive shrug of his shoulders, indicating that what happened down south in Rome had nothing to do with the respectable Milanese way of the world.
‘But foreign investors must be worried about the goings-on on the Milan Stock Exchange,’ I suggested. ‘What goings-on?’ replied my companion indignantly, looking at me as if I had just insulted his grandmother.
‘Well what about the games which went on in the chemicals sector a couple of months back?’ I ventured hesitantly.
‘It was an excellent deal,’ Giovanni insisted. ‘Think about it. Gemina acquires a profitable business. Fiat sells a loss-making operation. The banks place their Ferfin shares in friendly hands. It makes everybody involved extremely happy’.
‘And Mediobanca extends its influence without paying out a single lira for control,’ I added. ‘Don’t you think that might make foreigners think twice about becoming minority shareholders in an Italian company?’ ‘Foreign investors are the same as Italian investors,’ Giovanni said insistently.
‘If they make money they are happy; if they lose money they are unhappy. They like to pretend that their concept of morality is more important than profits. In the end, they’re just a bunch of hypocrites.’
It was hard to contest the point, especially since I knew I was in a country in which obedience to the law seemed to be a matter of choice. If I had any doubts, I only had to look at the chaotic traffic in the street outside. A cold sweat came over me as I realised that soon I would be joining the fray myself.
Given the state I was now in, I decided not to make a comparison between the salutto buono – the exclusive club of Italy’s old business families – and their counterparts in the south whose operations took in less respectable sectors than chemicals, energy, automobiles, publishing and financial services.
Instead, I took a final hit on the espresso and started to say my arrivederchis. Giovanni offered to walk with me to the car rental office. He paid the waiter what seemed to be a six figure sum – in lire at least. He then draped his elegant overcoat across his shoulders, over his equally elegant suit – both from world-famous designers who had been arrested on tax charges.
We sauntered past the Duomo and La Scala. The opera house was in the throes of its usual autumn crises – massive financial problems and threats of strikes. Doubtless, though, the season would start at some point in December – if not exactly on the scheduled day – accompanied by all the glitter and style and controversy which makes Italy Italy.
If I negotiated the city’s traffic successfully – and that was a big ‘if’ – I would soon be on the Autostrada, then over the border into dull, safe, respectable Switzerland. The plan was to stop for lunch in Lugano before heading on to Zurich. And I knew that then, as soon as I sat down to eat, I would wish that I was back in Milan.
For Lugano is even more schizophrenic than Milan, unsure of whether its heart belongs to Dant̩ or William Tell. Unfortunately, it manages to get things completely wrong Рcombining the efficiency of the Italians with the style of the Swiss. If it were the other way round, it would be the nearest thing to paradise on earth.
