Gianni Agnelli
Title: Senator Giovanni Agnelli
Full Name: Giovanni Agnelli
Nickname: L'Avvocato (The Lawyer)
Birthdate: March 12, 1921
Birthplace: Turin, Italy
Date of Death: January 24, 2003
Occupation: Businessman and Politician
Profile: President of Fiat (1966-1996). Named senator for life in 1991. Regarded by many as the true "King of Italy."
Website: http://www.giovanniagnelli.it/
Number of Quotes: 10
All the technology of our production was still pre-War. They were sort of '38, '39 and the War had been
stable and so we were infinitely behind whatever had been going on in the United States for instance.
And I don't say that we didn't expect it, but we were pleasantly surprised to see the generosity of their
foreign policy; and the generosity of their foreign policy at that moment was expressed through the Marshall Plan.
And the buying of new machinery meant not only the possibility of production, but even
the new technology, 'cos as I mentioned before, we were back of seven, eight years.
I have never compared myself to my managers ... although I have made some big financial decisions
on my own and decided on new investments, I have never involved myself in managerial decisions.
I mean, what Fiat had it was not very big, it was something like forty or fifty million dollars,
but it's enough to get revolving credit, to get starting away again, the buying of new machinery.
Italy in the first years got food, for the first year or the first periods got food. Then
we got raw materials and then we got tool machines, let's say, instruments for working.
Now between '45 and '48, things would change enormously, 'cos we'd had credit in United States, credit
from the Bank of America, credit from the Import-Export Bank and people had started working again.
The factories were heavily bombed, but practically the construction work had been redone very quickly.
Well, Italy had been overrun by the War, there had practically been civil war, north and south of the Gothic Line,
heavy bombing, the northern industrial cities had been bombed heavily and we had political disorder before 1948.
Well, the Communists at that moment were very strong in Italy and the Italian Communist
Party was the biggest Communist Party outside Soviet Union, there's no doubt about that.
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