Enrico Cuccia

Born 24 November 1907

Rome
Died 23 June 2000 (aged 92)
Milan
Nationality Italian
Occupation Financier
Years active 1930s – 1982
Spouse(s) Idea Nuova Socialista
Children Two daughters and a son

Enrico Cuccia (24 November 1907 – 23 June 2000) was an Italian banker, who was the first and
long-term president of Mediobanca SpA, the Milan-based investment bank, and a significant figure
in the history of capitalism in Italy.[1]
Contents

1 Early life and education

2 Career
2.1 Activities
3 Personal life
4 Death and burial
5 Legacy and personality
6 References

Early life and education

Cuccia was born into a Sicilian family in Rome on 24 November 1907.[2][3][4] He was of Arbereshe
origin.[5] His family was Catholic.[6] His father was a senior civil servant at the finance ministry.[7]
In 1930, Enrico Cuccia received a law degree.[7]
Career

Cuccia started his career as a journalist, but he left soon.[7] He began to work at the central bank
of Italy and served in Ethiopia.[7] In 1934, he joined the state-run holding group, Istituto per la
Ricostruzione Industriale (IRI).[8] Then he began to serve as a manager at IRI's Banca
Commerciale Italiana in 1938.[3][9]

In 1946, he was appointed president of Mediobanca when it was founded.[9][10] Subsequently, he

was the first head of the bank, which was initially named as Banca di Credito Finanziaro.[1] In
1982, he retired from the board of Mediobanca and was given the title of honorary president.[11]
[12] Antonio Maccanico succeeded him in the post.[13] Cuccia kept an office at the bank until his
death in 2000.[3]

He also served as a personal adviser of the Agnelli family.[7] However, their alliance ended at the
end of the 1990s.[14]
Activities

Cuccia shaped the Italian company patterns until 1992 when a bill became effective in order to
encourage the privatization of state-owned companies and banks.[15] He was the major
contributor to the merge of Montecatini and Edison into Montedison, which occurred in 1966.[16]
The merger was the first reorganisation of the chemical industry.[7] He was also instrumental in
Olivetti's takeover of Telecom Italia in 1999.[16][17] In addition to these much more visible
activities, he "was the principal dealmaker (and breaker) in the secretive world of large private
Italian capitalism."[18]
Personal life
Cuccia married Idea Nuova Socialista (meaning New Socialist Idea in English) Beneduce and had
three children, two daughters and a son.[11][19] They had known each other since high school and
got married in 1939.[15] Cuccia's spouse was the daughter of Alberto Beneduce, the founder and
president of the IRI.[20]
Death and burial

Cuccia underwent an operation for prostate cancer in April 2000.[11] He died at the Monzino
Foundation cardiological center in Milan on 23 June 2000 at the age of 92.[16] After a private
funeral ceremony on 24 June, he was buried in the family graveyard in his villa in Meina, a village
beside Lake Maggiore.[21][22][23] His body was laid under the body of his wife.[6]

However, Cuccia's corpse was stolen on 18 March 2001.[6][24] The thieves sent a letter,
demanding a ransom of $3.5 million to be paid to a foreign bank account.[25] The corpse was
found on a mountainside near Turin, and two men arrested in relation to the incident at the end of
March.[26][27] They were convicted and given a suspended sentence in December 2001.[26]
Legacy and personality

The square where the head offices of Mediobanca are located in Milan was named after Enrico
Cuccia in September 2000.[28] In 1998, The Global Finance regarded him as one of the 600 most
powerful financial players in the world.[29]

Cuccia never gave interviews and was not commonly seen in public despite his huge influence on
the country's finance system.[19] He was interested in philosophy, mysticism and the work of
James Joyce.[10]