The death of Charles Feeney, defined as “the James Bond of philanthropy”, in San Francisco aged 92, has provided the opportunity to remember him as the person who, more than any other, sustained the idea of donating most of his personal wealth when still alive. The son of two Irish immigrants, he became a millionaire with the creation of the chain stores Duty Free Shoppers. As his Foundation recalled, in the course of his lifetime, Feeney donated more than 8 billion dollars to educational, health, scientific and social causes. First and foremost, to Cornell University, his alma mater, where his graduation was made possible by funding made available to war veterans. By 2020, his patrimony had been reduced to 2 million dollars, and, for the record, only Warren Buffett, Bill and Melinda Gates, George Soros, Michael Bloomberg and the former wife of Jeff Bezos, have given more than he did. This piece of news struck the United States for the radical choice and the sum of donations whereas, in Italy, it struck as something quite out of the ordinary. No Italian millionaire could have done anything similar. Roman law, the foundation of the modern Italian judicial system, in fact, ensures the dominance of family rights over those of the individual. The individual, however much responsible for his or her own success and fortune, cannot make choices that would penalize the future rights of the family. If Charles Feeney had been in Italy, he would not have been able to decide to whom to leave his wealth, apart from a quota, the consistency of which depends on the presence or not of legitimate heirs. Donations made in his lifetime would also have been subject to contestation on the part of the heirs, at least up to 10 years from the opening of the will or 20 from the act of donation. The contrast between the two approaches is very clear: the former decidedly privileges the free will of the owner of the patrimony, the latter gives priority to protecting the ties of blood and family, indifferent to the ability and will of the heirs to carry on the parent’s business or the real quality of the relationship and tie.
It is exactly the priority given to family that constitutes one of the principal elements of weakness in the Italian business system, where family companies, often very important ones, are numerous. Keeping control in the family, which may very well be a winning aspect, can become an obstacle to business survival if the second and third generations are unable or unwilling to continue the family business. Certainly, not all successions are conflictual: that of entrepreneur and politician Silvio Berlusconi seems to have been devised in such a way as to guarantee control of his editorial and media empire, in spite of the fact that his heirs come from two different matrimonies. The situation of Leonardo Del Vecchio, founder of what was destined to become a giant of the eyewear industry, Luxottica, is, on the contrary, very complex. His patrimony is to be divided among his 8 heirs who, so far, appear to have failed to reach an agreement over several matters which is putting at risk the functionality of the company as well as the governance of its various subsidiaries.
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