The new generation of Benetton wants to shelve its most difficult years with a renewed image. After the collapse of the Genoa bridge in August 2018, and taking control of Atlantia last year together with the Blackstone fund, Alessandro Benetton, CEO of the Edizione holding (the family's financial arm) announced on Wednesday the launch de Mundys, the new name that will replace that of the infrastructure colossus Atlantia, which is already buried after the exclusion bid valued at 19,000 million euros.
“Anyone who has come across me knows that discontinuity and the future have always been part of my references in life as an entrepreneur, as a father. These points of reference could not be more timely in the narration that we want to do together with you", said Benetton, who at 59 years old leads the new generation of the Treviso empire founded in the sixties by the brothers Luciano, Giuliana, Gilberto and Carlo Benetton.
Mundys still does not have a CEO – they will announce it before the end of the month – but the Benettons and Blackstones explain the name change by defending that it is not just a new brand, but that they intend to transform the group towards sustainability and digitalization. The president of Blackstone in Italy, Andrea Valeri, has advanced that the fund has committed to provide additional capital if necessary for future investments.
“It would have been banal to launch a new brand with the old ways of doing things. It is a brave challenge and therefore we need this discontinuity”, Benetton remarked to this newspaper after the coming-out of Mundys, for which it has brought together shareholders, investors and other company officials at a corporate event held in Milan. José Aljaro, CEO of Abertis, a concessionaire owned by Mundys and ACS, has also participated, who has advanced that they hope to win new contracts in Puerto Rico –a country where roads are being privatized– and that they will present an offer in Greece before the summer for the relaunch of a concession.
The new identity of Atlantia is an important step after the image of the Benettons as successful Italian entrepreneurs was overshadowed by the fall of the Morandi bridge in Genoa in August 2018, which was managed by Autostrade per l'Italia, then a subsidiary of Atlantia. The accident caused 43 deaths and in July the trial that should clarify the responsibilities began, with Giovanni Castellucci, former CEO of Autostrade, among the accused. The leaders were singled out by the Italian government – then led by the once anti-establishment 5 Star Movement – and Atlantia had to end up divesting itself of Autostrade per l'Italia, which was sold to a consortium made up of the Italian public bank Cassa Depositi e Prestiti and others. money.
Following the death of Gilberto Benetton, the financial soul of the founding brothers, shortly after the tragedy, the Benettons sought a breath of fresh air and last year Alessandro Benetton was chosen as head of the new generation of four cousins sons of the four founding brothers – each of them had designated their heir –: Alessandro (son of Luciano), Franca Bertagnin (of Giuliana), Sabrina (of Gilberto) and Christian (of Carlo). A year later, his letter of introduction is Mundys, because he considers that "each one of us inherits something that he borrows from someone who came before and has a moral obligation to put all the effort to whoever will give it to him later."
Mundys was born as a colossus present in 24 countries and more than 23,000 employees, 6,000 of them in Italy. Every year more than 3,000 million trips in light and heavy vehicles are recorded on the group's highways, they manage airports (Fiumicino and Ciampino in Rome, and Nice, Cannes and Saint Tropez in France) with 60 million passengers and some 7 million people use their Telepass mobility services.
