Silvio Scaglia

Silvio Scaglia (born 1958 in Lucerne, Switzerland[1] ) is an Italian telecoms entrepreneur. He spent his childhood and youth in Novara, Italy. He and a group of other managers founded Italian telecommunications company Fastweb S.p.A and the web platform Babelgum. In 2007, Mr. Scaglia set up an investment firm, Pacific Capital, active both in public and private equity investment opportunities on a global scale. Scaglia was previously the majority shareholder of Fastweb S.p.A. until April 9, 2007 when he sold his 18.75% share in the company to Swisscom, which had launched a takeover bid of the company at 47 euros per share. The Swiss TLC company eventually bought 82.1% of Fastweb for a total of 3.1 billion euros.[2]

Forbes estimates Scaglia’s wealth at 1 billion USD in 2010, making him the thirteenth richest man in Italy (the last in the list of Italian billionaires) and the 937th richest man in the world.

Biography

Early career

After graduating in Electronic Engineering from the Polytechnic University of Turin, specialising in telecommunications and computer science, Scaglia began working at Aeritalia Spazio where, for six months, he worked on the Teleret satellite project. He then applied to Arthur Andersen Management Consulting, where he worked for 3 years, before moving to McKinsey & Co., where he was a consultant. There, he joined Gianfilippo Cuneo's team, and in 1989 he followed Cuneo to the McKinsey spin-off, Bain & Company (former Bain & Cuneo Associati), where he worked on the automotive sector, notably for Piaggio. In 1991, he entered the Piaggio group directly, to become General Manager of Motovespa, the group's Spanish subsidiary in Madrid. He subsequently became Senior Vice President, with specific tasks relating to business in China, India, Indonesia and South America.[1]

Omnitel

Prior to founding FASTWEB, Scaglia was CEO of Omnitel, which later became Vodafone Italia. Vodafone is the second largest wireless telecommunications company in Italy. According to an article in Italian newspaper Il Foglio, Scaglia's nickname at the company was Il Mago or "The Magician", because he managed to swell subscriber numbers from 300,000 to 8 million over a short period.[3]

Fastweb

After leaving the job of CEO of Omnitel, in September 1999 Scaglia founded e.Biscom, the holding company of other companies including Fastweb, which supplies telecommunications services.[4] He has said "[I] invested all my money - to the last penny - and all my credibility" in Fastweb.[5] On March 30, 2000 e.Biscom was floated on the Italian stock exchange, with the aim of raising equity and expanding its fibre optic network to Italy's main cities.[4] Fastweb began making investments with the funds raised from its stock exchange flotation. The company invested approximately Euro 4 billion in creating "the first fully IP optical-based access and backbone network in the world". The company was one of the first in the world to create a large-scale "triple-play" integrated IP network, for fixed telephony, high-speed internet and TV. It is also Italy's second-largest fixed-line phone operator after Telecom Italia.[6]

In December 2004[7] the merger between Fastweb and its parent company e.Biscom was completed; the new company was named Fastweb. On 22 March 2007 the Swiss telephone company Swisscom launched an amicable takeover bid for the Fastweb shares in circulation, at a price of 47 euros per share.[8] On 10 April 2007 Silvio Scaglia, Fastweb’s majority shareholder, sold his shares in the company, equivalent to 18.7% of the company’s share capital. Scaglia remained in the company as administrator of the Board of Directors. On 15 May 2007 Swisscom’s takeover bid for Fastweb closed with 64,141,464 shares delivered[9] (82.09% of the capital targeted by the bid) [10]

On 19 June 2007 Scaglia left his executive position at Fastweb: his position as Chairman was filled by Carsten Schloter. On March 16, 2010 he resigned from the Fastweb Board of Directors.[11]

Babelgum

In 2005 Scaglia founded Babelgum,[12] an interactive web TV offering free, high definition video content on demand.[13] He set up the venture without carrying out market research, saying "this is built on gut feeling...and is a natural extension of my Fastweb experience." Scaglia has so far invested 50 million euros in Babelgum, and expects the venture to break even by the end of the decade.[14] The platform is free for its users and operates a revenue sharing system.

Scaglia has been described as "as close as Italy gets to a full-fledged multicompany Internet entrepreneur" due to his talent for successful start-ups;[15] and a "technology maverick", credited with providing the "drive" to boost Italy's fibre optic networks and indeed lead the Italian fibre optic network market, according to a 2003 article on Time.com.[16]

Legal Problems

2007

On 13 March 2007, Silvio Scaglia was questioned for the first time, as former CEO of Fastweb, by the Roman magistrates [17] who, since late 2004, had been investigating international tax fraud dating alleged to have taken place in the period between 2003-2006. On 13 April 2007 the public prosecutor asked for Scaglia’s file to be archived. The Examining Judge archived the case on 22 May 2007.<ref name=Silvio Scaglia's Blog - Timeline>SilvioScaglia.it Timeline of Events</ref>

2010-2011

23 February 2010 marked the beginning of the "Phuncards-Broker" investigation: 56 preventive custody and house arrest warrants were issued after allegations of money laundering and international tax fraud . The events under investigation date back to the 2005-2006 financial year and involve presumed VAT evasion regarding activities by various paid service operators which used the Telecom Italia Sparkle and Fastweb network. Silvio Scaglia was accused of “conspiracy and false declarations through the use of invoices or other documents for non-existent transactions”.

On February 26, 2010, shortly after midnight, Silvio Scaglia landed at Rome Ciampino airport by hired private jet, in order to make himself available to the investigators as soon as possible. He was arrested and taken to Rome’s Rebibbia prison.

On 2 March 2010 Silvio Scaglia was interrogated in prison by the examining judges and over a month later, on 12 April 2010, he was interrogated in prison by the public prosecutor.

On 16 April 2010 www.silvioscaglia.it was launched,[18] a blog "dedicated first and foremost to Silvio Scaglia and to the stakeholders of Babelgum and of the other companies reporting to Mr. Scaglia (employees, partners, interactive TV users) worldwide, [which] wishes to be a place for information and discussion, with the conviction that Silvio Scaglia is not involved and that this will finally be ascertained and acknowledged by Italian judiciary".[19]

On 17 May 2010, following an approval from the public prosecutors, the examining judge signed the order allowing Silvio Scaglia to be held under house arrest: two days later, after 80 days in prison, Silvio Scaglia was transferred to Valle d’Aosta where he was placed under house arrest in his family home. The first instance proceedings began on November 23, 2010.

On 24 February 2011[20] the judges of the First Penal Section of the Court of Rome released Silvio Scaglia from house arrest, after one year of preventive custody.

On 17 October 2013 the judges of the First Penal Section of the Court of Rome acquitted the founder of Fastweb on all charges, establishing his "complete non-involvement in the matter".[21][22][23]

Public award

On 27 October 2013, Scaglia's judicial ordeal has been cited by Mr. Matteo Renzi at the Leopolda meeting in Florence[24] as an injustice that should no longer occur.[25]

References

  1. 1 2 Willis, Simon. "Silvio Scaglia" (PDF). Thought Leaders. Essays from Urban Innovators. Connected Cities. Cisco Systems. p. 114. Retrieved 4 August 2011.
  2. ↑ Clover, Julian (May 16, 2007). "Swisscom secures Fastweb". broadbandtvnews.com.
  3. ↑ "L'internazionale Colao sale in cima all'antenna della Vodafone". Il Foglio. 2008-05-28. p. 3.
  4. 1 2 "Fastweb Company Profile". Retrieved 4 August 2011.
  5. ↑ "Battle of the Billionaires". Red Herring. 2007-03-26. p. 25.
  6. ↑ "Babelgum's Contrarian Approach to Web TV". Business Week. September 4, 2007. Retrieved 2007-09-04.
  7. ↑ Fastweb Press Release Dec 1st 2004
  8. ↑ "Re: Notice pursuant to article 37 of CONSOB Regulation as adopted through Resolution no. 11971 of May 14, 1999 as further amended" (PDF). Swisscom. March 20, 2007. Retrieved 12 March 2012.
  9. ↑ "about Fastweb". World News. Retrieved 12 March 2012.
  10. ↑ "Swisscom submits Fastweb takeover prospectus to Consob". Telecompaper. September 20, 2007.
  11. ↑ "Scaglia quits Fastweb board". Financial Times. March 30, 2010.
  12. ↑ "Multimillion backing for the latest bright idea in online video". The Times. March 4, 2007.
  13. ↑ "FastWeb founder turns his attention to Internet television and video-on-demand". The New York Times. March 4, 2007.
  14. ↑ Blakely, Rhys (March 4, 2007). "Multimillion backing for the latest bright idea in online video". The Times.
  15. ↑ Sylvers, Eric (March 4, 2007). "Fastweb Founder turns his attention to Internet television and video-on-demand". International Herald Tribune.
  16. ↑ Halper, Mark (July 21, 2003). "E.Biscom: Silvio Scaglia/Milan". Time.com.
  17. ↑ Fastweb Press Release March 13 2007
  18. ↑ "A blog in defense of Silvio Scaglia". Eastern News. May 5, 2010. Retrieved 12 March 2012.
  19. ↑ Scaglia, Silvio. "Silvio Scaglia's blog". Retrieved 12 March 2012.
  20. ↑ "Fastweb founder Scaglia freed". Reuters US. February 24, 2011. Retrieved 12 March 2012.
  21. ↑ Sacchettoni, Ilaria (18 October 2013). "Un anno agli arresti. Ora Scaglia è assolto". Corriere della Sera (in Italian). Retrieved 5 November 2014.
  22. ↑ "Riciclaggio Fastweb-Telecom: 18 condanne, assolto Scaglia". TG24 Sky (in Italian). 17 October 2013. Retrieved 5 November 2014.
  23. ↑ "Italy's Fastweb founder acquitted of tax fraud". Reuters. 17 October 2013.
  24. ↑ The focus on the defendant's guarantees, "in our country, has deep roots and good arguments, long before at the Leopolda the story of Silvio Scaglia was reminded": Buonomo, Giampiero (2014). "La responsabilità civile dei magistrati". Mondoperaio edizione online.  – via Questia (subscription required)
  25. ↑ http://www.ilfattoquotidiano.it/2013/10/27/leopolda-renzi-se-sinistra-non-cambia-e-di-destra-berlusconi-no-parliamo-di-futuro/757959/
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