Pirelli has put up for sale its 18% portion of Telecom Italia. It’s the final episode in a privatization that started off badly by getting the company into debt and finishing off worse.
The revenue, the employment, the international presence, the participation of the biggest Italian companies have all been impoverished by a series of entrepreneurs who have not put up the capital.
In a few years we have seen Agnelli, Gnutti, Colaninno, Tronchetti Provera, and Benetton in turn with results completely below those of the preceding public management of the company even though that was criticized.
Telecom is strategic for the development of the country and certainly we cannot allow Pirelli to have an auction in the dark, to the best offer, put forward by whoever, without checking up on the position of employment and on the strategies that this choice can imply.
In the last few years we have seen a company that has handed out almost all its dividends to its shareholders, maintaining and increasing its own debt and thus putting off necessary investments. A behaviour that seems to me to be showing a lack of responsibility.
Telecom is an example of how privatizing without rules and without limitations leads only to a worsening of the service and the impoverishment of the system in the country. I hope that these experiences can serve as a lesson for the future.