Carlo Pesenti

Carlo Pesenti (born 1907 in Alzano Lombardo; died September 20, 1984, in Montreal, Canada) was an Italian entrepreneur. From 1946 until his death, he was director of the Italcementi Group and its affiliated companies and banks. He was also the main shareholder of the newspapers La Notte and Il Giornale di Bergamo and, until the end of the 1960s, owner of the car manufacturer Lancia. At one point, he sat on the supervisory boards of over 20 companies and also had excellent political contacts. Following a fraud scandal in the late 1970s, Pesenti lost control of most of his companies.

Biography Carlo Pesenti was born into the influential Pesenti family, who originated from Bergamo in Lombardy and were considered staunch Catholics. Italcementi, which Carlo inherited in 1946, was founded in the early 19th century as a sawmill and paper mill and entered the cement production business in the late 20th century under the leadership of his uncle Antonio Pesenti. Carlo Pesenti, son of Augusto Pesenti and cousin of Antonio Pesenti, attended the Collegio dei Padri Barnabiti in Moncalieri and then enrolled in mechanical engineering at the Polytechnic University of Milan, graduating in 1933. He then worked for the family business, becoming its managing director and general manager in 1942. Because he was considered politically unreliable, he was expelled from the company during the Second World War and is even said to have spent several days in prison. In 1946, he took full control of the company, as he was considered untainted, whereas his uncle Antonio had close ties to the old fascist regime and was forced to leave the company.

Under the leadership of the shrewd businessman Pesenti, Italcementi benefited from the post-war economic upturn and construction boom in Europe, enabling it to become one of the world's largest cement manufacturers. However, the business was not limited to cement, as the ambitious Pesenti built up a conglomerate. In 1946, Italmobiliare was founded as a subsidiary to serve as a holding company for Pesenti's financial and banking activities. In search of financing, his connections to the Curia of Bergamo enabled him to acquire the Banca Provinciale Lombarda, an institution closely linked to the Catholic Church. In the 1950s, his company controlled half of the Italian cement market and expanded into the insurance business with the acquisition of Riunione Adriatica di Sicurtà. Other important acquisitions during this period included Franco Tosi Meccanica, a large stake in the Falck steelworks, and the newspaper Giornale di Bergamo. In 1952, he also founded the Milan-based La Notte, a daily newspaper with an anti-communist orientation, which he financed. At that time, Pesenti was also being investigated by the Milan public prosecutor's office in connection with the collapse of Roberto Calvi's Banco Ambrosiano, who was a close business associate of Pesenti. Pesenti had become the second largest shareholder in Banco Ambrosiano in 1982, three months before Calvi died mysteriously in London.

In September 1984, Pesenti traveled to Canada to undergo medical tests at the Montreal General Hospital, having previously undergone heart surgery in Houston in the United States. During his hospital stay, his condition suddenly deteriorated and Pesenti died on September 20, 1984. Pesenti left behind his wife Rosalie and four children. At the time of his death, he was still under investigation for irregular transactions involving Banco Ambrosiano shares and dubious financial dealings with the Vatican Bank.

Political connections Pesenti belonged to Italy's conservative Catholic establishment and had close ties to the financial and industrial elite. He was anti-communist and a supporter of the Democrazia Cristiana, with whom he entered into a close client relationship that pushed the boundaries of legality. Pesenti is also said to have financed the right-wing extremist and terrorist Avanguardia Nazionale. As an important European industrialist, he was well connected throughout Europe and participated in the meetings of the Trilateral Commission. He also attended meetings of Le Cercle, a conspiratorial forum for cooperation between conservatives on both sides of the Atlantic. In his autobiography, David Rockefeller refers to Le Cercle as the "Pesenti group" and states that he first learned of its existence in October 1967, when he was invited by Carlo Pesenti to join it.