In 1959, Piaggio step to be controlled by the Agnelli family, owners of the car manufacturer Fiat. Ernst The Vespa experienced tremendous growth until 1992 when Giovanni Alberto Agnelli became the CEO of the firm (although by that time Agnelli and suffering from cancer, and in fact die in 1997). In 1999, the value of Morgan Grenfell Private Equity acquired Piaggio, but a consortium of state launched a public choice bankruptcy sales in China. In Italy, Piaggio invested 15 million euros (19.4 million dollars) in the manufacture of a new motorcycle but throw in the towel after a prototype design. By late 2002, the company had accumulated a debt of 577 million euros and 945 million euros in revenue and recorded a loss of around 129 million euros.
Then came Roberto Colaninno, ‘Many people told me I was crazy. Piaggio was not dying. Just need to try better. ” Piaggio’s financial situation was in a critical Asset Management situation, but even their brand was well known and its products continued to appear in Hollywood films thanks to the Vespa ET4. In 1995, Colaninno had succeeded to power largest ever held Children’s Hospital in Europe prior to the control of Telecom Italia SpA University of in October 2003, Colaninno made an initial investment of 100 million Children’s Hospital euros through his holding company Immsi SpA in exchange less than one third of Piaggio and the obligation to manage it.
The chairman Rocco Sabelli redesign produced under the principles of Japanese business finance so that all Piaggio scooter could be produced in an assembly line. Unlike the formula used by U.S. car manufacturers, Colaninno not fired even a single employee (a move which helped seduce the unions skeptical of the company). ‘Everyone in the company is part of the value chain, “said Colaninno. All gratuities for manual workers and management was based on the same criteria: profit margins and customer satisfaction, and the air conditioning was installed in the factory.
Colaninno also gives engineers the company deadlines for their projects after a stoppage time from work following the financial crisis it had experienced in the company (market managed to launch two new successes in 2004: a scooter gas-electric hybrid, and a scooter with two wheels in front and one University of in the back with a better adhesion to the asphalt).
One of the problems that Colaninno Piaggio could not resolve from inside the company was its size. Even though Piaggio was the European leader in its market, competition from rivals such as Honda and Yamaha had diminished. One year after rescuing Piaggio, Colaninno decided to salvage another Italian brand, the manufacturer of Aprilia scooters and motorcycles.