MILAN — A simple family, post-war Italy. Husband, wife and two children. From the Ligurian East, with a few words and a lot of work, the head of the family Gabriele conquers Nigerian maritime logistics, managing all the materials for the oil activity in and from the country’s ports. He creates a 4 billion dollar empire, and raises his two heirs Matteo and Simone, who are well on their way to taking it over after 25 years of work in Africa.
This is where it comes into play Gianpiero Fiorani, the former aggressive banker who from another province – Lower Lombardy – orchestrated the “smart guys from the neighborhood”, in the attempted assault on the high society of Italian finance twenty years ago. Almost all of them ended up under investigation, convicted, disqualified: he also ended up in prison for six months. However, as Fiorani himself said a The 19th Century in 2016, «my story in some ways can be a constraint or an opportunity. Evidently an entrepreneur like Volpi considers the experience I have gained as an opportunity.” Thus life, or rather Gabriele Volpi, king of the Nigerian banks, offers a second chance to the man who blew a kiss on the forehead of Antonio Fazio, governor of Bank of Italy. And he, as shrewd as in the days when the People’s Bank of Lodi climbed the credit Olympus, seizes it immediately, placing himself like a plastic between the entrepreneur and his family: to the point of breaking it up, dismantling the three trusts – Winter, Summer and Spring, initiated by Volpi with beneficiaries wife and children – to transfer everything to 3Ma Maltese company which (watch out for the initials) is headed by three children Marta, Matteo and Marco Fiorani.
Since 2016, the Fioranis, making the most of a plan agreed with Volpi to restructure the parent company Intels while the price of crude oil collapsed, have taken over the management of the entire group from their offices in Lugano, which in Nigeria has reduced revenues to a fourth since then, while the diversifications in Italian catering are full of failures. All under the ineffable eyes of the Swiss managers of Volpi’s trusts, while the successful family business became a Succession to Italianto.
It’s hard to believe it, though Republic had not collected kilos of papers and documents that prove it. But the story, after six years of legal disputes in the most exotic forums of the world, is coming to an end: on March 21st the Supreme Court of the Bahamas issued the last sentence in favor of Matteo Volpi, Gabriele’s eldest son who in 2018 started a lawsuit against the father and against Delanson, manager of the trusts. After a few months and the second phase of the arbitration, which has just been concluded on the merits, will establish the “quantum” that Gabriele Volpi and Fiorani, now his shadow and true company head even if he does not appear in the organization chart, will have to return to the legitimate heirs, restoring the family trusts.
Volpi’s fortune in the Nigerian docks
Everything would be less arcane if we knew what was going on in the owner’s head: but for years he had been living segregated, between Montecarlo and the 50 meter yacht Solinda moored there, and broke off all ties with his world. But the papers speak, and the stories of those who knew him from his youth, when, orphaned of a mother, he was raised by the coach of the Recco water polo developing his attachment to the team that he bought in the 1990s and since then has been the strongest in Europe. A laconic and brisk man like many on the Riviera, he also meets in the pool Giannangelo Perrucciwhose shipping company Medafrica in 1975 he took him to work in Nigeria. In 1982 his friend’s company failed and Volpi founded Nicotes, logistics services to the oil industry. These were years of great work in the country, which rocketed off on a trajectory that today sees it among the leaders of Africa. Volpi manages to “hook up” to the oil giants, especially the Italians Eni, Saipem and Tenaris, which is the leader in Nigerian hydrocarbons, accompanies exploration from onshore wells to underwater ones. Ever further offshore, with ships with ever deeper draft. His Orlean holding company manages to equip adequate docks, becomes a monopolist and since 2000 has won the 50-year contract for the ports of Onne, Warri and Lagos. A profession where it is easy to earn good money: you just need to find staff to operate trucks and cranes at costs lower than the rent. Then there are the additional services, canteens, dormitories and warehouses where the majors keep pipes and materials.
The meeting with Fiorani in Porto Cervo
Such grace, perhaps, distracts Volpi. Which begins to diversify relationships and investments. And he finds on his way the “accountant from Codogno”, character of the financial commedia dell’arte which today has been lost in the news, but he was the absolute protagonist, carrying out around ten takeovers of smaller banks, which were successful thanks to the complacency of nonchalant associates and the vigilance, which he saw in his Popolare di Lodi ” an aggregating hub”.
The extensive investigations of Bancopoli overwhelmed him, Fiorani came out with a plea deal, in mid-2008, of 3 years and 3 months for criminal conspiracy, fraud, embezzlement; then in October 2015 he compensated the Lodi bank, swamped by bad loans and disputes, with 34 million drawn from one of his Singapore funds, 7 of which to pay taxes in Switzerland. In 2000, Volpi had already sought out the banker Fiorani to talk about investments, without receiving any response. But on the occasion he had bonded with Francis Cuzzocrea, his collaborator in Lodi who later became a consultant for Volpi through Albion Finance, a family office which then initiated the Ligurian family’s trusts with the Ticino notary Jean-Pierre Baggthe. Around 2010, after the judicial interlude, Fiorani found Volpi again in Porto Cervo and showed a completely different interest in his business. He becomes an advisor, first for Italian diversification (the entrepreneur’s “games” between restaurants, historic shops, football teams like SpiceThe Rijeka Croatian, the Arzachena) and to create fiscal castles. From which the investigation against the two will come in May 2018 self-laundering and fictitious registration of assets, for the hypothesis of having repatriated money resulting from tax evasion into Italy.
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