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Giancarlo Parretti (born 23 October 1941) is an Italian financier. In 1989, he took over Cannon Film Group Inc. from
Menahem Golan Menahem Golan ( he, מנחם גולן; May 31, 1929 – August 8, 2014, originally Menachem Globus) was an Israeli film producer, screenwriter, and director. He was best known for co-owning The Cannon Group with his cousin Yoram Globus. Cannon ...
and Yoram Globus. Almost immediately, he made plans to take over the storied French studio
Pathé Pathé or Pathé Frères (, styled as PATHÉ!) is the name of various French businesses that were founded and originally run by the Pathé Brothers of France starting in 1896. In the early 1900s, Pathé became the world's largest film equipment ...
, and changed Cannon's name to Pathé Communications. However, the French government blocked his bid due to concerns about his background. Undaunted, Parretti bought
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc., also known as Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures and abbreviated as MGM, is an American film, television production, distribution and media company owned by amazon (company), Amazon through MGM Holdings, founded o ...
in 1990 for $1.2 billion, using money borrowed from a
Dutch Dutch commonly refers to: * Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands * Dutch people () * Dutch language () Dutch may also refer to: Places * Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States * Pennsylvania Dutch Country People E ...
subsidiary of
Crédit Lyonnais The Crédit Lyonnais (, "Lyon Credit ompany) was a major French bank, created in 1863 and absorbed by former rival Crédit Agricole in 2003. Its head office was initially in Lyon but moved to Paris in 1882. In the early years of the 20th cent ...
and contingent on future profits financing the purchase from mogul
Kirk Kerkorian Kerkor Kerkorian ( hy, Գրիգոր Գրիգորեան; June 6, 1917 – June 15, 2015) was an American businessman, investor, and philanthropist. He was the president and CEO of Tracinda Corporation, his private holding company based in Beve ...
. Parretti then merged the former Cannon with the MGM purchase to create the short-lived
MGM-Pathé Communications MGM-Pathé Communications was an American film production company that operated in Los Angeles County, California from 1990 to 1992. The company was founded and controlled by Italian financier Giancarlo Parretti through his purchase and merger o ...
. Under Parretti's control, MGM released almost no films (one victim being the ''
James Bond The ''James Bond'' series focuses on a fictional British Secret Service agent created in 1953 by writer Ian Fleming, who featured him in twelve novels and two short-story collections. Since Fleming's death in 1964, eight other authors hav ...
'' franchise), while Parretti enjoyed a
Hollywood Hollywood usually refers to: * Hollywood, Los Angeles, a neighborhood in California * Hollywood, a metonym for the cinema of the United States Hollywood may also refer to: Places United States * Hollywood District (disambiguation) * Hollywoo ...
mogul lifestyle. He fired most of the accounting staff and appointed his 21-year-old daughter to a senior financial post. He used company money for presents to several girlfriends, including a former runner-up for
Miss Universe Miss Universe is an annual international beauty pageant that is run by a United States and Thailand based Miss Universe Organization.Natalie Tadena (July 2, 2015"Donald Trump's Miss USA Pageant Lands on Reelz Cable Channel". ''The Wall St ...
. His reign at MGM became the basis for the film ''
Get Shorty ''Get Shorty'' is a 1990 novel by American novelist Elmore Leonard. In 1995, the novel was adapted into a film of the same name, and in 2017 it was adapted into a television series of the same name. Plot summary The story centers on Ernesto ...
'', which was produced by MGM. In 1991, his ownership dissolved in a flurry of lawsuits and a default to Crédit Lyonnais, and Parretti faced
securities A security is a tradable financial asset. The term commonly refers to any form of financial instrument, but its legal definition varies by jurisdiction. In some countries and languages people commonly use the term "security" to refer to any for ...
fraud In law, fraud is intentional deception to secure unfair or unlawful gain, or to deprive a victim of a legal right. Fraud can violate civil law (e.g., a fraud victim may sue the fraud perpetrator to avoid the fraud or recover monetary compen ...
charges in the
United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...
and
Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...
. In March 1999, he was found guilty of misuse of corporate funds and fraud and he was sentenced in absentia to four years in prison and fined 1 million
franc The franc is any of various units of currency. One franc is typically divided into 100 centimes. The name is said to derive from the Latin inscription ''francorum rex'' (King of the Franks) used on early French coins and until the 18th centu ...
s by a Paris court.AFP-Extel News Limited. March 31, 1991


See also

*
List of trading losses The following contains a list of trading losses of the equivalent of USD100 million or higher. Trading losses are the amount of principal losses in an account. Because of the secretive nature of many hedge funds and fund managers, some notable los ...


References


Bibliography

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Parretti, Giancarlo 1941 births People from Orvieto Living people Film studio executives Perjurers Italian fraudsters Italian white-collar criminals People convicted of fraud Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer executives People convicted in absentia The Cannon Group, Inc. people