News - Profile: Silvio Berlusconi
Posted on October 22, 2007 in the Business insurance category
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Silvio Berlusconi, who resigned as Prime Minister in May, is Italy’s richest man, estimated to be worth $12bn (7bn).
If controversy and colourfulness could be measured in the same way, he would probably come top of those tables too.
The former prime minister not only runs a business empire that spans media, advertising, insurance, food and construction. He also owns Italy’s most successful football club, admits having had cosmetic surgery, and has fought off repeated corruption allegations.
Indeed, it is Mr Berlusconi’s involvement in every part of Italian life that has angered his critics, and exasperated his rivals.
For some Italians, Mr Berlusconi’s success as a business tycoon is evidence of his capabilities - a reason why he should run the country.
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 The best political leader in Europe and the world  Silvio Berlusconi, on himself
Berlusconi in his own words
Berlusconi in pictures
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For others, Mr Berlusconi and his businesses did better out of the relationship than Italy.
In the run-up to Italian elections this April, one of the most controversial aspects of the campaign was the media coverage.
For Mr Berlusconi’s investment company controls Italy’s three biggest private television stations. And his appointees run the public ones.
Opponents complained that an Italian voter could not escape blanket coverage favourable to Mr Berlusconi.
They said his control of the media extended beyond the news agenda, and that comedians who lampooned the prime minister never appeared on TV again.
Even more controversial, however, are legal inquiries into Mr Berlusconi’s business dealings.
Prosecutors have so far failed in various attempts to convict him on corruption charges. This month, they are trying again.
Last week, Mr Berlusconi and 13 others went on trial over allegations of fraud and money laundering. The men, who all deny the charges, face up to 12 years in prison if found guilty.
Warming-up
Born on 29 September 1936 into a Milan family, Mr Berlusconi started honing his business skills at a young age.
He used his charm to sell everything from vacuum cleaners to university essays during his youth, activities complemented by stints as a crooner in nightclubs and on cruise ships.
This was just the warm-up.
Mr Berlusconi took Forza Italia into politics in 1993
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In 1961, he graduated in law and started his business career in earnest, borrowing from the bank where his father worked to set up his first company, Edilnord.
With Edilnord, a construction company, Mr Berlusconi established himself as a residential housing developer around his native Milan.
Milano 2, comprising nearly 4,000 tasteful flats in a garden setting, was built on the city’s eastern outskirts in the late 1960s.
Not content with providing the residents solely with housing, 10 years later he launched a local cable-television outfit - Telemilano - a project which would grow into Italy’s biggest media empire, Mediaset.
While he accumulated TV stations, Italy’s largest publishing house Mondadori, and the leading daily newspaper Il Giornale, Mr Berlusconi’s company Fininvest also took nearly 150 other companies under its umbrella.
Enter stage right
In 1993 Mr Berlusconi founded his own political party, Forza Italia - Go Italy - named after a chant used by fans of the AC Milan football club - which he also owns.
In 1994, Mr Berlusconi became prime minister, forming a coalition with the right-wing National Alliance and Northern League.
But rivalries between the three leaders, coupled with Mr Berlusconi’s indictment for alleged tax fraud by a Milan court, led to the collapse of the government just seven months later.
He lost the 1996 election to the left-wing Romano Prodi.
As ever, Mr Berlusconi refused to be deterred and spent the next few years re-organising his party.
By 2001, he was back on the throne, in coalition once more with his former partners.
Immunity
But allegations have continued to dog him.
He has been accused of embezzlement, tax fraud and false accounting, and attempting to bribe a judge.
A number of cases have come to trial. In some cases he has been acquitted. In others, he has been convicted, but the verdict was overturned on appeal.
In others still, the statute of limitations has expired before the case could reach its conclusion.
Mr Berlusconi’s government passed reforms shortening the statute of limitations for fraud.
A law passed by Mr Berlusconi’s majority that gave him and other top public post-holders immunity from prosecution while in office was later thrown out by the constitutional court.
Mr Berlusconi said the latest allegations were dragged up to undermine him at the general election, which he narrowly lost to his old rival Romano Prodi.
Mr Berlusconi resigned after heading the longest-serving Italian government since World War II.
But it seems the perma-tanned, wrinkle-free prime minister will not be staying out of the limelight, even if he is now out of office.
Read source of it on the http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/3034600.stm site
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