Founded in 1976, CIR ($CIR.MI) is a €600 million Italian holding company with controlling stakes in just two businesses: Sogefi (auto parts, listed $SGF.MI) and KOS (nursing homes and private clinics, unlisted).
The company is controlled by the De Benedetti family with a 38% stake (but 48.5% voting rights), followed by Spanish value-oriented asset manager Cobas with 17.5%. Rodolfo De Benedetti has been CEO from 1993 to 2013, when he was elected Chairman and Monica Mondardini was named as the new CEO (she is still in charge).
History
CIR’s history starts in 1976 when Carlo De Benedetti (father of Rodolfo) acquired a tannery in Turin listed on the Milan stock exchange, transforming it into a holding company for industrial participations: today CIR stands for “Compagnie Industriali Riunite”, but its original name was “Concerie Industriali Riunite” (i.e. “Associated Industrial Tanneries”).
In 1978 CIR subscribed to a capital increase at Olivetti, the historical Italian manufacturer of typewriters and later calculators, fax machines and computers, becoming its main shareholder with Carlo De Benedetti nominated as its CEO. Following the recapitalisation, the company underwent a significant financial and industrial restructuring: in the 1990s Olivetti entered the telecommunications sector and, in particular, mobile telephony with GSM technology, creating Omnitel, at the time the second Italian mobile operator and later sold to Vodafone. CIR sold its remaining stake in Olivetti in 1998.
Carlo De Benedetti is the closest Italian version to the corporate raiders of the 1980s: in 1988 he attempted to acquire the Belgian holding Société Générale de Belgique through an unsuccessful public tender offer.1 Meanwhile, in 1981 CIR had acquired control of Sogefi, a small automotive components company, transforming it over the years into an international player. Other transactions in that period include the entry into the food sector with Buitoni-Perugina in 1985 (sold to Nestlé in 1998) and the acquisition in 1986 of 40% of Cerus, a company with significant participations in various sectors, from fashion to finance, including a relative majority shareholding in Valeo, the French maker of automobile components. In 1987 Cerus created the Iberian holding Cofir which soon became one of Spain’s principal holding companies with investments mainly in the hotel, real estate and wine sectors.