Dear director, “Picone sent me”, so said Giancarlo Giannini in the unforgettable 1984 comedy by the brilliant director Nanni Loy. In 2023, in the palaces of power, the anecdote is taken up by many who jokingly quote, “Caputi sends me”, alluding maliciously and perhaps even inappropriately, to the diligent chief of staff of Prime Minister Gaetano Caputi, already strict director- general in times of Consob, the National Commission for the Control of Companies and the Stock Exchange.
And the culmination is that Consob itself asked Tim for the papers from the last Board of Directors meeting to clarify who suggested, “a part” of the directors, how to behave. But to hear the whispers, it would have been some councilors who told a few words (copyright, in the first republic, of another Caetano, the unforgettable secretary general of the Quirinale Gifuni, prognosticator of a thousand strategies).
Harvest or gossip, since Monday the Consob commissioners have decided to see clearly, not least because some of them, and it also seems to President Paolo Savona, do not like very much the fact that the Council has not even implemented the Assembly’s resolutions on the subject salary of managers. Luciano Carta, former Aise and Leonardo, will arrive shortly to fix Tim, received with almost unanimous approval from the institutions. Repeated attempts, particularly by investment banks, to involve the Del Fante-Lasco couple in the Poste Italiane match failed. We will see Consob’s movements fighting with this new mass.
For several years, the Commission has been divided on the most important dossiers – from Generali to Edison, from Tim to Unicredit – with consequent dismissals between commissioners and general managers. Not even the long walks around the Villa Borghese, the perfect setting for the highest reflections, brought advice to Savona, who grew up in the shadow of Francesco Cossiga, and president of a crumpled commission at a moment as critical as the current one, also determined by the recent crises banks in America and Europe.
Who has a little empty paws to enter, probably crippled by his leftist extraction, is Carmine Di Noia, director of the OECD after the failed appointment to the top of ESMA, the European Consob. It is worth remembering that Consob has supervisory powers over intermediaries, markets and issuers to protect investors, the efficiency and transparency of the capital market and corporate control. The exact opposite, therefore, of what just happened in the last ballet of Tim so much so that, when the news came out in the media that the CDP would withdraw its offer, the stock fell by up to 5%. The following day, it was Dario Scannapieco, outgoing CEO of Cdp, who denied the news and here the price rose, albeit slightly, to then fall again, confirming the trend of recent times. A rollercoaster.
However, none of this seems to disturb Consob’s dreams too much, and he would do well to intervene. Firstly, due to the obvious conflict of interests of Cdp, which holds a majority stake in Open Fiber, Tim’s competitor in the development of the fiber network. Who will be the “Picone” of this disastrous season? Consob has the task of finding out. There are already several ministers, from Giancarlo Giorgetti to Adolfo Urso, as well as the undersecretary of communications Alessio Butti, who want to know why Tim’s clouds, the real ones that are not from the cloud, are getting darker and more disturbing. Let’s hope that, at least this time, it won’t take a blast from Giorgia to sweep them away.
Source: IL Tempo

Roy Brown is a renowned economist and author at The Nation View. He has a deep understanding of the global economy and its intricacies. He writes about a wide range of economic topics, including monetary policy, fiscal policy, international trade, and labor markets.