(ANSA) - PARMA, 01 JAN - Calisto Tanzi, an entrepreneur whose parable began with the growth of Parmalat and ended with the crash of 2003 and the trials that followed it, died at 83.
He was born in Collecchio, a small town a stone's throw from Parma, where he then built his empire, on November 17, 1938. He was just 22 years old when he founded his milk company in 1961, taking over his grandfather's old family-run company, and transforming it into a multinational with over 130 factories around the world. Tanzi had in fact invented long-life milk but his ambition led him to expand from the food sector (not only milk but also canned foods, snacks, yogurt) to tourism, TV, and even football. In the nineties the stock market, then the acquisitions, the recourse to the securities market and finally the crash. According to the investigators' definition, Parmalat has thus become "the largest debt factory in the history of European capitalism".
The greatest difficulties for Tanzi began in 1999 when he acquired Eurolat from Sergio Cragnotti's Cirio group for an exorbitant price, over 700 billion lire, to allow Cragnotti to repay debts with Cesare Geronzi's Banca di Roma. A pattern that, according to the investigators, is also repeated when in 2002 Tanzi decides to buy mineral waters from Giuseppe Ciarrapico, who is also indebted to Banca di Roma. They pay off debts by contracting other debts and in 2003 Tanzi calls Parmalat Enrico Bondi with the aim of reorganizing the group but the super-consultant immediately realizes that Parmalat will not be able to meet the bond of 150 million euros due shortly thereafter. On 27 December of the same year Tanzi was arrested and thus began, after the economic adventure, the judicial case as well.In December 2010 comes the sentence for 18 years of imprisonment for a crash worth 14 billion euros. (HANDLE).