Maverick Italian Stirs Up the Soybean Futures Market

The late Serafino Ferruzzi made his fortune helping to feed starving postwar Italy. His son-in-law, Raul Gardini, has wider ambitions and they are having repercussions on one of the world’s busiest commodities markets.

Gardini’s company, Ferruzzi Finanziara S.p.A., was the center of attention this week as the reported target of an emergency order by the Chicago Board of Trade to break up an alleged attempt to corner the soybean market.

The company denied that it had done anything wrong and protested the order--which required liquidation of large positions in the market’s July soybean contract--saying it was only trying to satisfy its export commitments.

Since taking over the Ravenna-based company nine years ago, Gardini has turned the Ferruzzi food group into Western Europe’s biggest grain exporter and Italy’s second-largest private industrial concern after Fiat.

If Giovanni Agnelli, head of the Fiat auto empire, is Italy’s industrial king, then the handsome, silver-haired Gardini may be the crown prince.

But while Agnelli was born into wealth, Italy’s financial press frequently reminds Gardini of his middle-class farming origins and his rough-and-tumble board-room style.

While Agnelli, who holds a law degree, is reverently referred to as the “Avvocato” (lawyer), Gardini has been nicknamed “Il Contadino” (the peasant).

New Breed of Entrepreneur

Gardini has made a number of bold moves since he became head of the Ferruzzi Group.

The most important was his 1987 takeover of the Montedison chemical company, a move that consolidated Ferruzzi’s power as Italy’s second-largest private business group.

Italy’s financial press takes pride in describing Gardini as one of the new breed of entrepreneurs who look beyond Italy’s borders and are not afraid of a corporate fight.

The 56-year-old Gardini, an avid outdoorsman and hunter who owns a 500-year-old palace on Venice’s Grand Canal, is equally proud of his roots as a farmer.

He was born in Ravenna, attended an agricultural school and went to work for Ferruzzi. In 1957, he married Ferruzzi’s daughter, Ida.

Since becoming chairman in 1980, Gardini has launched a major expansion and the group now owns 2.5 million acres of land distributed over three continents.

Perhaps his boldest move was his raid on Montedison, one of the 10 largest chemical companies in the world but saddled with debt and aging plants that were accused of being some of Italy’s worst polluters.