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Il Corriere della Sera 6-8-2012
STATI UNITI, IL CASO DELLA
VENDITA PAGINE GIALLE CHE IMBARAZZA IL CANDIDATO MITT ROMNEY
Romney e la grana Pagine Gialle
che gli fa
evitare l'Italia nella tourneè europea
L'operazione di Bain Capital
(quando Mitt Romney ne
era amministratore delegato) che imbarazza il candidato Usa
 Erano gli anni in cui in Borsa era tutto possibile, gli
anni del boom di Internet e di una società, all'epoca considerata un'azienda
fuori moda, che si tradusse in una pioggia di miliardi per pochi manager.
Qualcuno li chiamò «prodigi della new economy» (>Vittorio
Malagutti, CorrierEconomia
del 6 marzo 2000). Prodigi che ora, a distanza di dodici anni, tornano a
galla rimbalzando dagli Stati Uniti all'Italia.
Mitt Romney (Afp)
L'OPERAZIONE - Sarà un caso, ma Romney, nel tour elettorale europeo che dovrebbe
propiziare la sua elezione alla presidenza degli Stati Uniti, ha saltato a pie' pari l'Italia. E forse la ragione sta nel suo
passato alla Bain Capital, la società di private equity
che ha contribuito a fondare e che a lungo ha guidato. I fatti sono questi:
Bain Capital, quando Romney ne era amministratore
delegato, ha effettuato un'operazione che da noi fa ancora molto discutere. A ricordarlo è l'agenzia Bloomberg: «Bain - scrive
Bloomberg - era parte del gruppo che acquistò le Pagine Gialle dal governo
italiano riuscendo poi a rivenderle a Telecom Italia due anni dopo, durante
l'apice della bolla tecnologica, a un prezzo 25 volte superiore rispetto a
quello pagato. I profitti sarebbero stati poi veicolati presso le divisioni
in Lussemburgo, per evitare tasse in altri paesi europei».
IL GUADAGNO - L'operazione
avrebbe fruttato a Romney personalmente, secondo la
ricostruzione fatta dall'agenzia, 50-60 milioni di dollari. «In Italia
l'operazione si è tradotta in almeno tre libri, azioni legali ed editoriali -
ricorda ancora Bloomberg in un articolo dal titolo "Romney
persona non grata in Italia per l'accordo di Bain che ha aggirato le
tasse" - in cui i compratori venivano accusati di aver accumulato
fortune alle spese dei contribuenti italiani». Un'accusa a cui ha subito
risposto la stessa Bain affermando che «la struttura holding della società
era nel pieno rispetto dei requisiti fiscali in Italia, Europa, Stati Uniti e
dei paesi in cui risiedevano gli altri investitori. Investire attraverso
strutture cross-border - ha precisato la nota della
società - assicura che gli investitori non siano soggetti alla doppia
tassazione in diversi paesi». Questa è la giustificazione di Bain. E dal
punto di visto legale e finanziario non fa una grinza. Diversi sono i
contraccolpi sulla politica e soprattutto sulla campagna elettorale per la
Casa Bianca. I democratici hanno già messo 'sotto accusa' Romney
per l'abilità che ha mostrato nell'evitare (legalmente) di pagare tasse nel
suo Paese pur avendo a lungo ricoperto cariche societarie profumatamente
pagate. C'è da stare sicuri che anche il caso Pagine Gialle finirà nei
dossier dello staff elettorale del presidente Obama.
Il
Corriere della Sera (6 marzo 2000) Pagina 5
Pioggia d' oro / Chi c' e' dietro Bc Partners, Investitori Associati, Cvc
e Bain Che si preparano a incassare oltre cinquemila miliardi di plusvalenze
Seat, jackpot per pochi intimi. Hanno investito quando le Pagine Gialle erano
un' azienda fuori moda Ora quattro fondi potrebbero guadagnarci il 1.000 % .
Grazie a Telecom
Vittorio Malagutti
Corriereconomia.
Pioggia d' oro Grazie a Telecom Internet piu'
finanza piu' Borsa uguale miracoli. Per avere
conferma di quello che per il momento sembra il vero paradigma della
cosiddetta new economy, si puo' bussare alla porta
dei gestori di un gruppo di fondi chiusi come Bc Partners, Investitori Associati, Cvc,
Investitori Bain. Nel novembre del 1997 hanno giocato una fiches
da poche decine di miliardi sulla Seat, l' editore delle Pagine Gialle
privatizzato dal Tesoro, una societa' che tutti
allora consideravano poco piu' di un' anticaglia
dai redditi bassi e incerti. E adesso, mentre si profilano le nozze Seat -
Tin.it, quegli stessi fortunati gestori si preparano a incassare una
plusvalenza pari a una decina di volte il capitale investito. Merito del boom
di Internet, delle mirabolanti nuove frontiere di sviluppo della rete. Lo
scenario, comunque, e' ancora molto incerto. Non e' chiaro se, come e quando Roberto Colaninno e Lorenzo Pellicioli riusciranno a mandare in porto l' unione tra
Tin.it e Seat. Restano da definire molti aspetti importanti, a cominciare
dalla valutazione delle attivita' Internet di
Telecom Italia raggruppate in Tin.it. Sulla base delle poche notizie
ufficiali sin qui diffuse, una parte dei soci di controllo di Seat si prepara
a dividersi, molto probabilmente esentasse, una plusvalenza superiore a 5
mila miliardi di lire. La pattuglia di fortunati e'
composta da alcuni degli azionisti della Huit, la
holding lussemburghese che controlla il 61 % di Seat. Bc
Partners, Investitori Associati, Cvc, Investitori Bain nel 1997 affiancarono Telecom
Italia, De Agostini e Comit in un' unica cordata per comprare Seat. Il conto
finale, 1.655 miliardi di lire, venne saldato grazie ai prestiti delle
banche, prontamente rimborsate anche facendo leva sulrialzo
borsistico del titolo Seat. Finora Telecom si e'
limitata a dichiarare che in una prima fase intende acquistare dagli altri
soci Seat le azioni necessarie a raggiungere il 29,9 % del capitale delle
Pagine Gialle. Se si considera che il gruppo di Colaninno, attraverso Huit, vanta gia' il 12 % circa
di Seat, allora Telecom potrebbe finire per comprare solo un 17,9 % , al
prezzo di 4,5 euro per azione. L' investimento totale, quindi si aggirerebbe
intorno ai 6.000 miliardi di lire. Secondo indiscrezioni, De Agostini e Comit
potrebbero conservare, oppure vendere solo in piccola parte, la loro
partecipazione in Seat. I fondi chiusi, a meno di sorprese, sembrano invece, destinati
a uscire di scena. Ma chi incassera' materialmente
queste plusvalenze da record? Domanda complessa, perche'
i fondi chiusi hanno strutture e regole di funzionamento complesse e, per di piu', coperte dalla piu'
assoluta riservatezza. "Rispondiamo solo ai nostri investitori", si
schermiscono di solito i gestori. E, come se non bastasse, quasi sempre
questi veicoli di investimento sono basati in paradisi off shore che consentono grande liberta'
di manovra, oltre a quella che viene eufemisticamente definita un'
"ottimizzazione fiscale". Comunque, in base alla prassi piu' diffusa, circa l' 80 % dei proventi del fondo
finisce ai sottoscrittori, che in massima parte sono investitori
istituzionali internazionali (banche, assicurazioni, fondi pensione). Cosi' l' investitore piu'
importante del fondo Bc Partners
quinto, quello che ha comprato Seat, e' il fondo
pensioni degli insegnanti dello Stato dell' Ontario, in Canada. Tra i
sottoscrittori del capitale iniziale di Investitori Associati c' erano invece
la Parmalat, le Assicurazioni Generali, l' Ina e la stessa De Agostini, gia' socia per via diretta della cordata per Seat. E
anche l' Hopa di Emilio Gnutti
e dei suoi amici bresciani, ora grandi azionisti di Telecom, aveva puntato
alcuni miliardi su Investitori Associati. I sottoscrittori mettono i
capitali, ma le decisioni di investimento vengono prese da un gruppo piu' o meno ristretto di dirigenti riuniti in una societa' , spesso con base in un paradiso fiscale,
chiamata in gergo management company. Per Bc Partners, per esempio, nata da una costola della banca d'
affari Baring, la gestione spetta a 22 manager tra
cui gli italiani Alberto Tazartes e Francesco Loredan. Investitori Associati, costituita alcuni anni fa
con la collaborazione del banchiere Pierdomenico
Gallo e del consulente Gianfilippo Cuneo, fa invece
capo alla Comit, anche se tra i manager piu'
influenti c' e' Antonio Tazartes,
fratello di Alberto in forze alla Bc Partners. I fondi Bain, invece, contano su una dozzina di
partner, guidati da Josh Beckenstein.
Le management company hanno diverse fonti di reddito. Annualmente viene
prelevata una quota vicina all' 1 % del capitale del fondo chiuso a titolo di
commissione di gestione (management fee). Ma il
compenso di gran lunga piu' sostanzioso dipende
ovviamente dai risultati del fondo. Alle management company viene in genere
destinata una quota pari a circa il 20 % delle plusvalenze. Dedotte le spese
questa somma viene poi suddivisa tra i vari partner. La regola vale anche per
la fortunata operazione Seat che potrebbe concludersi con una plusvalenza
dell' ordine delle migliaia di miliardi. Come dire che le Pagine Gialle
potrebbero presto tradursi in una pioggia di miliardi per un manipolo di
manager. Prodigi della new economy.
Bloomberg.
Romney Persona Non Grata in Italy for Bain’s Deal Skirting Taxes
By
Jesse Drucker, Elisa Martinuzzi
and Lorenzo Totaro - Aug 6, 2012 6:01 AM GMT+0200
Mitt Romney skipped Italy on his swing through Europe. That was probably prudent.
That’s because Bain Capital, under Romney as chief executive officer,
made about $1 billion in a leveraged buyout 12 years ago that remains
controversial in Italy to this day. Bain was part of a group that bought a
telephone-directory company from the Italian government and then sold it
about two years later, at the peak of the technology bubble, for about 25
times what it paid.
Enlarge image 
Mitt Romney in North Las Vegas, Nev., on Aug. 3,
2012. Photographer: Isaac Brekken/The New York
Times via Redux
Enlarge
image 
Mitt Romney reacts to crowd applause as he
campaigns at McCandless Trucking in North Las
Vegas, Nev., on Aug. 3, 2012. Photographer: Charles Dharapak/AP
Photo
 Aug. 6
(Bloomberg) -- Bloomberg's Peter Cook reports on a leveraged buyout deal by
Bain Capital in Italy 12 years ago that remains controversial to this day as
the company made about $1 billion on the deal while avoiding taxes. He speaks
on Bloomberg's "In The Loop."
Bain funneled profits through subsidiaries in Luxembourg, a common
corporate strategy for avoidin
g income taxes in other European countries, according to documents
reviewed by Bloomberg News. The buyer, Italy’s biggest telephone company, now
has a total market value less than what it paid Bain and other investors for
the directory business.
In Italy, the deals have spurred at least three books, separate legal
and regulatory probes and newspaper columns alleging investors made a fortune
at the expense of Italian taxpayers. Boston-based Bain wasn’t a subject of
the inquiries, which didn’t result in any charges.
The sale of the government’s directory business is “a dark chapter in
the country’s privatization history, one that has hurt Italians deeply,” said
Bernardo Bortolotti, an economics professor at Turin University who
advised the Italian Treasury on asset sales from 2002 through 2005. “It was a
mistake from the start, damaged by a lack of transparency and the use of
offshore funds.”
Personally Involved
While few ordinary Italians realize the link between Romney and the
investor group, the deal symbolizes Italy’s economic woes and government
futility as the nation struggles to convince investors that it can repay
Europe’s second-largest debt without a bailout. The economy is in its fourth
recession since 2001 and unemployment is at a 13-year high.
Romney himself probably earned more than $50 million, and possibly as
much as $60 million from the Italian directory sale of Seat Pagine Gialle SpA, according to a person familiar with the matter. The
deal turned into one of the biggest windfalls of his tenure.
“With this investment, Mitt Romney and Bain Capital, with its
consortium partners, partnered with a new management team to transform this
company, and grow it into a tremendous success,” said Michele Davis, a spokeswoman for Romney’s presidential
campaign. “Mitt Romney is running for President to put that experience to
work.”
‘Burned’ Investors
As Bain’s CEO from 1984 to 2001, Romney was personally involved in the
deal at various points, including the initial decision to invest. He attended
at least one meeting about it in Boston, according to a participant. When Bain
sold the directory business in 2000, Romney, while still holding the title of
CEO, was in charge of preparations for the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City. Romney has contended that he gave up
management control of Bain in February 1999 to run the games.
“Mitt Romney and Bain played the role of successful financial
speculators at the peril of the Italian government and the small stock-market
investors who were burned by the sharp decline in Seat
(PG) shares,” said Giovanni
Pons, a journalist for la Repubblica and co-author
of “L’Affare Telecom” (2002), which recounts
details of the Bain deal.
The use of offshore subsidiaries to avoid taxes has been standard
practice for private equity firms such as Bain, as well as other big U.S.
companies such as Google
Inc. (GOOG), Facebook Inc. and Cisco
Systems Inc.
‘Full Compliance’
“The holding company structure was in full compliance with all tax and
reporting requirements in Italy, Europe, the U.S. and the resident countries
of other investors,” Bain Capital said in an e-mail. “Investing through this
common cross-border structure ensured that investors were not unfairly
subjected to double taxation in multiple countries. The structure did not
reduce or defer income taxes for any U.S. investor.”
Romney’s extensive investments in tax havens are drawing intensifying media scrutiny at the
same time that revenue- starved governments around the world are cracking
down on such practices.
In recent weeks, Romney has faced increasing pressure to release
additional years of tax returns because of questions over his 13.9 percent
personal tax rate, his Swiss bank account, an IRA valued at as much as $102
million and his investments in Bermuda and the Cayman Islands.
An official for Italian Finance Minister Vittorio Grilli, who oversaw privatizations at the
Treasury when Italy sold the telephone-directory business, declined to
comment.
Cautionary Tale
The telephone directory episode may serve as a cautionary tale now
that the Italian government has approved an additional round of state asset
sales, said Italian Senator Elio Lannutti, a member of the Italian Values party, which is
headed by a former magistrate who led anti-corruption probes in the 1990s.
Italy aims to raise 10 billion euros through those sales and reduce the
second-biggest government debt load in Europe.
Bain’s purchase and quick resale of the yellow pages business is “an
example of Italian capitalism, whereby those with little capital are able to
cheat the system and enrich themselves,” Lannutti
said. “It’s a mistake Italians hope won’t be repeated again now.”
Twelve years later, Romney’s ties to the deal could hurt his image in
Italy, said Carlo Alberto Carnevale-Maffè, a professor of strategy at Bocconi University’s School of Management in Milan.
“There is always this underlying sentiment in Italian public opinion
that when you are in politics you don’t serve the public good, you serve your
personal interest,” Carnevale-Maffè said. “Many
will see Romney’s role in this as confirmation and it will be interpreted in
a very cynical way.”
Pagine Gialle
The origins of Bain’s deal can be traced to 1996, when the Italian
Treasury -- whose chiefs then included director general Mario Draghi, now head of the European Central Bank -- began privatizing several publicly
owned businesses to reduce government debt, making it easier to enter the
euro zone.
One of the first companies to go was Seat Pagine
Gialle, or yellow pages, controlled by a
state-owned company called Stet SpA.
Bain got wind of the public auction through the Italian unit of Bain
& Co., the consulting company whose partners created Bain Capital. The
Milan-based subsidiary was run by Gianfilippo
Cuneo, a founder of McKinsey & Co.’s Italian operations.
Cuneo also was part owner of an investment firm, which needed
additional capital to invest in the directory sale. Cuneo brought the deal
directly to Romney.
“He immediately understood that it was a credible operation and it was
worth devoting some time to it, so he guaranteed the support of Bain
Capital,” Cuneo said.
‘Sharp Questions’
Lorenzo Pellicioli, who became an investor
in Seat and its CEO, recalled Romney stopping in on a meeting in Bain’s
Boston offices about the pending acquisition.
“He came into the room, asked a couple of very sharp questions
immediately, we shook hands and he left,” Pellicioli
said.
The other investors in the Bain group included De Agostini
SpA, an Italian holding company with publishing and
media interests; Banca Commerciale
Italiana SpA, then itself
only recently privatized and one of the country’s largest banks; Telecom
Italia SpA (TIT), Italy’s biggest phone company, then
government-controlled; and Cuneo’s investment group Investitori Associati SpA.
Bain invested 36 million euros, or about $40 million, according to a
document compiled by Investitori Associati, giving it a 16 percent share of the bidding
group, and making it the second-biggest investor, after Telecom Italia.
2000 Resale
Bain and its partners wound up acquiring 61.7 percent of Seat for 853
million euros in November 1997, beating another bidder.
The Italian government, which previously owned a controlling stake in
Telecom Italia, sold most of its shares in the phone company in 1997. In
February 2000, at the height of the Internet bubble, Telecom Italia announced
it was spending 14.6 billion euros to buy the remaining portion of Seat --
which had since expanded its Web offerings.
While Bain won’t disclose its precise return on the investment,
Cuneo’s office said Investitori Associati’s
return was almost 28 times the initial investment. Bain, like other private
equity firms, enhances returns by using borrowed money to finance
acquisitions.
Bain moved profits through a series of subsidiaries in Luxembourg, a
country that makes it easy to get cash out without paying taxes, according to
corporate filings. Corporate records in Luxembourg show Bain carried out
technical steps for a tax- free repatriation of profits to the U.S.
‘Non-Existent’ Taxes
Investitori Associati said taxes
paid by the Luxembourg holding company in which it and the group members
invested were “almost non-existent,” according to an e-mail from Cuneo’s
office.
Seat’s stock price had almost tripled in the three months leading up
to Telecom Italia’s offer in February 2000. The technology-heavy Nasdaq Composite Index (CCMP) increased 160 percent in the two years
leading up to the deal.
“It was sold at the peak of the Internet bubble” recalled Pellicioli, Seat’s then-CEO. “It was not pure smoke,
there was a lot of real meat, but the multiple within the Internet bubble and
the timing helped.”
Italian regulators raised concerns that the price was manipulated and
investors traded on inside information and probed alleged conflicts of
interest. Two top Telecom Italia officials also owned shares in Seat
indirectly.
‘Ripped Off’
Italy’s stock market watchdog, Consob, and
Turin prosecutor Bruno Tinti investigated,
according to a person familiar with the matter and news accounts at the time.
No charges were brought.
Seat was sold in 2003 for 3.7 billion euros to another group of
private equity firms and today has a market value of 57 million euros. Today,
all of Telecom Italia has a market capitalization of 12.5 billion euros. Since February 2000, shares in Telecom
Italia have declined about 90 percent.
“The government got ripped off,” said Alessandro Fogliati,
who led a Stet shareholder group that voted against the sale of Seat. “It was
the beginning of the destruction of Italian industry.”
To contact the reporters on this story: Jesse Drucker
in New York at jdrucker4@bloomberg.net; Elisa Martinuzzi in
Milan at emartinuzzi@bloomberg.net; Lorenzo Totaro in
Rome at ltotaro@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Jonathan Kaufman at jkaufman17@bloomberg.net
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