Parmalat

Founded after bankruptcy 2005

Parmalat is an Italian food group, one of Europe's largest dairy companies. Based in Collecchio near Parma group of companies had to sign up in December 2003 bankruptcy and was headed to October 2005 by a liquidator. Parmalat employs around 13,932 people and generated 2011 sales of 4.49 billion euros. 5000 Italian dairy farmers are dependent on the company as a major customer. The shares of Parmalat again be traded on the Italian Stock Exchange since 6 October 2005. In June 2011, Parmalat was taken over by the French dairy industry group Lactalis.

  • 3.1 locations
  • 3.2 Licensee Locations

Company History

Opened in 1961, the 22 -year-old Calisto Tanzi a small dairy in Collecchio near Parma. Business was so good that he expanded it after a short time in the major cities of Genoa, Florence and Rome. Tanzis company was the first dairy in Italy that was bottled in glass bottles instead of in just arisen beverage cartons of milk. As in 1965, the Swedish packaging manufacturer Tetra Pak invented for UHT drinks, Tanzi was among the first who used them. Other innovations, such as the " functional food" vitamin C milk followed. The company soon became the market leader in Italy. Since 1968, it operates under the name Parmalat and has been listed on the Milan Stock Exchange since 1973.

Soon, the company had grown into a multinational corporation that created next to dairy products, drinks, pastries, soups and other foods. Catholic financial circles are the expansion Tanzis have financed and is said to have conveyed in return politician and Curia generous with private jets and corporate helicopters.

Explosive expansion

2002 were based 57% of revenues of € 7.5 billion to fresh milk. After listing the following expansion was made:

  • Expansion of six in thirty countries in Europe, Africa and Latin America since 1990
  • Football club FC Parma, led by Tanzis son Stefano as president and board member of Parmalat
  • Parma tour - travel and tourism companies ( bankruptcy, sold), led by Tanzis daughter Francesca as CEO
  • TV, Odeon TV ( sold)

Financial fraud

In late 2003, was one of the biggest corporate scandals in history to light: in the balance sheet of Parmalat missing eight billion euros.

1999 Parmalat had made the Cayman Islands a subsidiary under the name Bonlat Enter. Two years before the collapse to a manager of a food company have betrayed the Italian comedian Beppe Grillo, that the debt of the Group long ago exceeded its annual sales. Grillo used this information for a skit to the public but not take it seriously.

The financial problems were first visible in early 2003, when the company tried bonds worth € 500 million to sell and the Chief Financial Officer Fausto Tonna resigned in March 2003 ( he was replaced by Alberto Ferraris replaced).

The Italian Exchange Consob expressed in spring a suspected discrepancies, whereupon Tanzi threatened with damage claims. Dairy farmers in Nicaragua and Collecchio in the province of Parma Parmalat held out three to six months before he paid for their deliveries. As the Italian Cartel Tanzi calling on three dairy farms for sale, he bought it over straw men back.

The full implications of the debt was in November in public, as dubious transactions with the Fund Epicurum were known in the Cayman Islands and the Parmalat shares on the stock exchanges dramatically lost value. Ferraris resigned and was replaced by Luciano Del Soldato.

In December Del Soldato resigned as Parmalat despite an alleged liquidity of € 4.5 billion in cash from Epicurum no funds could commandeer that there is an urgent need for liabilities and payments due to a € 150 million bond. Enrico Bondi was established as a restructuring in the company. Tanzi resigned as chairman and CEO. Parmalat's bank, Bank of America, revealed that € 3.95 billion were a fictional item in the balance sheet of Bonlats. The sale of milk powder from Singapore to Cuba worth U.S. $ 359 million has also been found as fictional, as well as the sale of a patent for UHT milk valued at approximately U.S. $ 90 million, or sale of fruit juice brand Santal for U.S. - $ 210 million

Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi led fraud investigations and appointed Bondi as the renovators of the company. Tanzi, once a symbol of unlimited success, was arrested a few hours after the declaration of insolvency and accused of financial fraud and money laundering. Even industry insiders were surprised at how despite auditing and banking supervision such accounting fraud were possible. Thus, Parmalat sold, for example, even credit-linked notes, in fact, it placed a bid on its own creditworthiness, to conjure up a fortune in thin air.

Tanzi was with Sergio Cragnotti from insolvent Roman canners Cirio and the media tycoon Silvio Berlusconi on the economic sizes of the 90s. He embodied the dream of the self-made man, who had made from scratch an international company. The president made ​​him the " Knights of Labor ". Under questioning at the San Vittore prison in Milan, he confessed, funds in the amount of approximately € 500 million of Parmalat Parma tour and other companies used to have misappropriated. His football and tourism companies seem also to financial disaster as Tanzis attempt to compete with Berlusconi by buying Odeon TV - he had the company with a loss of about € 45 million sale. Opposite Milan prosecutor Francesco Greco, one of the investigators in the context of Mani pulite should Parmalat managers have acknowledged that the balance sheets 've been doctored since 1988.

2004, determined by the prosecutors, auditors and bankers deficit totaled € 23 billion alone in the Roman bank Capitalia, which was also involved in the insolvent Cirio, lacked € 1.5 billion, € 700 million more in the bank of America; the German bank had an interest of 5% of Parmalat. Citigroup is said to have invented an off -shore company named Buconero (black hole) in the value of € 500 million.

Bondi filed against 45 banks a lawsuit. About four of them, the prosecutor opened investigations on: Citibank, German Bank, Morgan Stanley and UBS.

In September 2005, the first criminal trial in Milan began. On 5 June 2006, a further court proceedings against 64 former directors and employees was opened in Parma. Among the defendants are Calisto Tanzi, his son Stefano and his brother Giovanni. The main method should have opened on 14 March 2008, but was already postponed a few minutes after starting on May 6, 2008; the main defendant Tanzi, which could face up to 15 years in prison, did not appear in court for health reasons. All 55 other defendants also appeared not to the process.

Calisto Tanzi in 2008 was sentenced to ten years in prison and pay restitution in the amount of 80,000 euros by a court in Milan. Seven defendants, who were with him before the court, were acquitted. As Tanzi is seventy years old, acres of imprisonment is unlikely.

Parmalat in the world

Locations

Licensee locations

Types of business entity International Securities Identification Number Chief Executive Officer Bond (finance) Credit Linked Note Order of Merit for Labour Offshore Tages-Anzeiger La Repubblica
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