It doesn’t look as if Carlo de Benedetti’s promise of a meeting with international shareholders in Ing C Olivetti & Co SpA later this month has done anything to quell the concern over the company, and the shares have tanked in a big way over the past few days, after a report in that chief financial officer Luciano La Noce, administrative director Corrado Ariaudo and head of investor relations Pierpaolo Cristofori have all left the company. Olivetti said it had no immediate comment on the report, but there has already been a big management shake-up earlier this year, when Corrado Passera resigned as managing director for reasons still unexplained, and Francesco Caio moved in to take his place. Il Sole claims that there is tension between Caio and chairman and major shareholder Carlo De Benedetti over Olivetti’s ongoing restructuring plan, and it says that the company’s losses could be exacerbated by new reorganization charges. The board of Olivetti was due to meet late yesterday, an informed source told Reuter. The latest wave of selling of Olivetti’s shares took them close to an historic low, and has come amid market concern that the group’s first half 1996 results will be even worse than forecast. Olivetti is expected to release its first half 1996 results on September 26, but the company’s festering woes are underlined by the fact that it has not made a profit since 1990 as it has jumped from one hardware and systems strategy to another.
