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Renato Soru is called the Italian Bill Gates. He is the richest man in Italy. Until a few years ago, banks would not grant him a loan. Today, his company, Tiscali, is worth more on the stock exchange than Fiat or Mediaset. Soru is Italy's first dot-com super success story.
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Who is the richest person in Italy? Be careful how you answer. No, it isn't Gianni Agnelli, owner of Fiat, and it isn't Silvio Berlusconi, the television tycoon with a passion for politics. You are off course as well if you say Carlo De Benedetti or Giorgio Armani. The correct answer is Renato Soru, who some call the Italian Bill Gates. Until a few years ago, banks wouldn't grant him a loan. Today, his company, Tiscali, is worth more on the stock exchange than Agnelli's Fiat or Mediaset, Berlusconi's television and publishing empire.
A few numbers say it all. When Tiscali was first listed on Milan's stock exchange last October, its shares were selling for roughly $46. By the end of the first day, the price had jumped 55 percent. Today, one share costs more than $855. "Do you have any Tiscali, by chance?" Italians wistfully ask anyone who seems to enjoy a sudden burst of fiscal fitness.
Just who is Soru, whom even Wall Street is watching carefully, and just what does he do? The whole story appears far-fetched unless observed through the lens of the new economy. Renato Soru, forty-two-years old, looks like an anonymous manager and hails from Sardinia-not known as a breeding ground for Italian tycoons. The Italian island is off the economic beaten track, better known for grazing sheep and beautiful beaches. Today, thanks to Soru, Sardinia has forcefully entered European financial headlines. In 1997, when he created his telephone and telecommunications company, with which he planned to challenge Telecom Italia's public monopoly, he chose to name his company after a local grotto known only to speleologists. Today the Tiscali name is well known throughout Italian business circles as one of the leading forces in the close-fought battle between mobile phones, portable Internet, and the entire industry of virtual technology.
His company's rapid rise, however, did not go to Soru's head. Instead of moving to Milan or Rome, the respective economic and political capitals of Italy, he remained on Sardinia. There Soru holds the reins of his growing empire while maintaining his sober lifestyle in his birthplace, the small town of Sanluri with 9,000 inhabitants located near the island's capital, Cagliari.
He was not born rich. His father was a government employee, and his mother owned a modest grocery store. He has four brothers, one of whom runs a small factory that makes French fries. He graduated with a degree in economics but soon realized that he wanted to look beyond the island's borders. He got a loan and went to Czechoslovakia, where he created Czech On-Line. It was his first success. When he sold the company, he invested the money at home. Tiscali was born and has forever changed the Italian economy, which for decades has revolved around a handful of families and a few big state-owned groups.
Soru, however, has avoided transforming himself into a public person, preferring to keep a low profile. Meanwhile, Tiscali, which began with thirteen employees, today has only 200. He made his fortune thanks to the Internet but remains cautious about all the 'e-hype'. "I am lucky to represent
change, of course. But the virtual world is not an obligatory route," he says. "I don't tell my four children that if they don't start to work with a computer online they won't have a future. My oldest daughter studies ancient literature at the university. All of them have a computer and know how to navigate online, but nothing more than that."
It might also be that if their father continues to turn everything he touches into gold, maybe they will not really have to work.
-Niccolo d'aquino
Copyright Delegation of the Commission of the European Communities May 2000