“We will be around 100 million (of hole). However, everything that has emerged and is emerging since September ’23 is a disgrace.” And again: “I trusted and I was wrong. I was betrayed in the true sense of the word. A few months ago I realized that something was wrong. That the photograph of the group that the top management repeated to us in the boardrooms was not real”. This is the complaint, in an interview with the ‘Corriere della Sera’, by the founder of Benetton, Luciano Benetton who is preparing to leave the clothing group but underlining that “now we need to look ahead, in the next few months a plan for the future will be made, we have wasted four years and this makes everything more difficult not having the magic wand. Unfortunately there will be sacrifices to be made. What I can say is that it will be put our utmost effort into rediscovering the energy of the best times and giving new life to this brand which represents so much for our family and which bears our name.”
“Fortunately – explains the entrepreneur – we had decided to withdraw Benetton from the stock exchange some time ago. And therefore the entrepreneurial risks were and are all in the hands of the family. But once again for my history, for what the company means, for the employees, the families, the many who confidently enter the stores from Moldova to Paris from New Delhi to Los Angeles, before leaving the group I intend to explain with the transparency that characterizes me what happened without shirking my responsibilities”.
“I left the company in 2012 with the company healthy, with a turnover of 2 billion and a profit, even if logic says that we can always do better. Only after strong insistence from my brother Gilberto – he notes – I decided to return in 2018, shortly before his passing. Edizione had not been able to find a quality management team. The company was losing a lot. As soon as I returned I tried to resolve the most obvious errors, towards the end of 2019 they suggested I apply for the role of CEO”.
My function at that moment, Luciano Benetton continues, “was that of tutor to bring the company to managerial autonomy. If I had been twenty years younger I would have committed myself personally. The choice fell on a candidate who comes from the mountains, I like him, I say to myself ‘big shoes with a fine brain’, he presents himself with an apparent desire to understand and take charge of the problems, including the management team to be integrated person because it defines her as absolutely unsuitable for such a complex assignment”.
Covid, Benetton notes, has “logically altered the activity and the results. For this reason the three-year break-even plan was moved to 2023 and the objective was found to be acceptable. In fact, in the various councils the numbers continue to give the picture of a draw possible. Only on 23 September ’23 was there any mention of some problems, but in a subtle way. And everything seemed under control.” While we receive these first signals from the council, given in an absolutely unconcerned manner on their part, he further underlines, “I realize that the numbers don’t add up to me and that the problem goes well beyond what they declared in September. Among other things, it was For a long time I have been feeling discontent inside and outside the company due to the arrogant and incapable attitude of the new managers. Phrases like ‘we decided and you have to stick to it’ which we are not used to hearing or using in the company, are harmful. the caliber of the new management team. Naturally I firmly point this out to the ‘new ones’ and in the board of directors I express my great concern for an economic performance that absolutely does not add up”. In one of the councils of the following months, he adds, “the bomb explodes, that’s what it’s all about. They suddenly present a dramatic budget hole, a shock that leaves us breathless”: “We’ll be around 100 million. However, all that has emerged and is emerging since September ’23 it is a disgrace.”
