Giancarlo Parretti (born 23 October 1941) is an Italian financier, who has bought, sold, and operated numerous businesses.
Early life
Parretti was born in
Orvieto
Orvieto () is a city and ''comune'' in the Province of Terni, southwestern Umbria, Italy, situated on the flat summit of a large butte of volcanic tuff. The city rises dramatically above the almost-vertical faces of tuff cliffs that are compl ...
, north of Rome, Italy. He worked as a waiter in London before moving to
Sicily
Sicily (Italian language, Italian and ), officially the Sicilian Region (), is an island in the central Mediterranean Sea, south of the Italian Peninsula in continental Europe and is one of the 20 regions of Italy, regions of Italy. With 4. ...
.
Career
Real estate
In Sicily, Parretti claimed to have used government aid to buy and sell at least four hotels. In 1983, he bought three Italian insurance companies and two years later sold them to a
Geneva
Geneva ( , ; ) ; ; . is the List of cities in Switzerland, second-most populous city in Switzerland and the most populous in French-speaking Romandy. Situated in the southwest of the country, where the Rhône exits Lake Geneva, it is the ca ...
-based
merchant bank
A merchant bank is historically a bank dealing in commercial loans and investment. In modern British usage, it is the same as an investment bank. Merchant banks were the first modern banks and evolved from medieval merchants who traded in comm ...
, Sasea Holdings.
Parretti once was an owner and chairman of the 300-hotel Melia Hotel chain, and Renta Immobiliaria S.A, a Spanish real estate company. He was once a partner of the Spanish newspaper '' El Mundo''.
Media industry
From 1979 to 1981, Parretti was chairman of Siracusa Calcio, and partners with Gianni De Michelis and in the daily newspaper "Il Diario", that was published between 1979 and 1981.
In 1986, Parretti gained control of ''
Le Matin de Paris
''Le Matin de Paris'' (, ''The Morning of Paris'') was a French daily newspaper, founded on 1 March 1977 by Claude Perdriel, and disappearing in 1987 ("dépôt de bilan" on 6 May). Its foundation is the subject of the documentary ''Numéros zéro ...
'', a Socialist newspaper in Paris, which went bankrupt a year later.
Pathé
In 1989, he took over Cannon Film Group Inc. from Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus. Almost immediately afterwards, he made plans to take over the historic French studio Pathé, and changed Cannon's name to Pathé Communications in anticipation of the buyout. However, the French government blocked his bid due to concerns about his background.
"In 1990, the Italian financier Giancarlo Parretti was trying to line up the Liberian government as an investor in a company he was using to buy MGM/UA Communications. But the relationship ended when Mr. Parretti’s ally, the Liberian president Samuel K. Doe, was tortured and killed by opponents."
Undaunted, Parretti bought
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc. (also known as Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures, commonly shortened to MGM or MGM Studios) is an American Film production, film and television production and film distribution, distribution company headquartered ...
(MGM) in 1990 for $1.2 billion, using money borrowed from the Dutch arm of Crédit Lyonnais and contingent on future profits financing the purchase from mogul
Kirk Kerkorian
Kerkor Kirk Kerkorian (; June 6, 1917 – June 15, 2015) was an American businessman, investor, and philanthropist. He was the president and CEO of Tracinda Corporation, his private holding company based in Beverly Hills, California. Kerkorian ...
.
Parretti persuaded Steve Ross (who, at the time was chairman of
Time Warner
Warner Media, LLC ( doing business as WarnerMedia) was an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate owned by AT&T. It was headquartered at the 30 Hudson Yards complex in New York City.
It was established as Time Warne ...
) to guarantee a
US$
The United States dollar (Currency symbol, symbol: Dollar sign, $; ISO 4217, currency code: USD) is the official currency of the United States and International use of the U.S. dollar, several other countries. The Coinage Act of 1792 introdu ...
650 million loan to help his Pathé Communications to carry out the deal, with Time Warner in return gaining access to 3,000 films in the Pathé and MGM/UA libraries to distribute worldwide through theaters, TV and home video.
Parretti then merged the former Cannon with the MGM purchase to create the short-lived MGM-Pathé Communications.
MGM
Under Parretti's control, MGM released almost no films (one victim being the ''
James Bond
The ''James Bond'' franchise focuses on James Bond (literary character), the titular character, a fictional Secret Intelligence Service, British Secret Service agent created in 1953 by writer Ian Fleming, who featured him in twelve novels ...
'' franchise; the planned production of the seventeenth Bond film, ''Property of a Lady''), while Parretti enjoyed a Hollywood mogul lifestyle. He fired most of the accounting staff, appointed his then 21-year-old daughter to a senior financial post, and used company money to buy lavish gifts for several girlfriends, including a former runner-up for Miss Universe. In 1991, his ownership dissolved in a flurry of lawsuits and a default to Crédit Lyonnais, and Parretti faced
securities fraud
Securities fraud, also known as stock fraud and investment fraud, is a deceptive practice in the stock or commodities markets that induces investors to make purchase or sale decisions on the basis of false information.sentenced in absentia to four years in prison and fined 1 million Ff by a Paris court.
"an ex-waiter whose principal expertise was Ponzi schemes, not film"...much of the bank's money went to what were euphemistically called 'development deals' involving young women who were neither filmmakers nor developers" –
Peter Bart
Peter Benton Bart (born July 24, 1932) is an American journalist and film producer, writing a column for ''Deadline Hollywood'' since 2015. He is best known for his lengthy tenure (1989–2009) as the editor in chief of ''Variety'', an enterta ...
In popular culture
Parretti is the subject of the 2024 documentary ''The Man Who Definitely Didn’t Steal Hollywood'', directed by John Dower.
IMDb
IMDb, historically known as the Internet Movie Database, is an online database of information related to films, television series, podcasts, home videos, video games, and streaming content online – including cast, production crew and biograp ...