Fabio Scaccia, My Hero

As the bids for Alitalia came in yesterday, I must admit I didn’t pay as much attention as I should have. In the middle of the group of private equity investors and a lone airline was buried an individual named Fabio Scaccia.

Fabio is a high school teacher in a suburb of Rome and he makes a mere 1,200 euros a month. Now considering that Alitalia is projecting 4.33 billion euros in revenue for 2006, you’d think that a 1,200 a month salary wouldn’t quite be enough to be able to buy the airline. Then again, they are projecting a horrendous loss of 380 million euros for the year, so they should have to pay this guy to take them over.

Seriously though, how did this guy get his bid into the process? Well in true Alitalia fashion, the process was a mess. According to this article, Fabio went online and found the address. He put together an expression of interest and sent it off. Even though bidders had to have at least 100 million euros in assets, the Italian government didn’t even bother to check out the bidders. So, Fabio’s name joined the ranks of the big boys.

The funny thing is that he has a plan that would probably work better than what current management is doing. He says he’s happy with his salary and he’d be willing to work for the same amount running Alitalia. That alone would save the company more than 2.6 million euros per year considering the current CEO’s outrageous 225,000 euro salary PER MONTH.

Then Fabio would “concentrate on maintenance, invest in new aircraft and centre all the activities around a single hub in Rome (instead of having a second hub in Milan).” Hey, gotta give the guy credit for trying. He seems to have a better plan than anyone currently running the show, though I’m guessing the other 10 potential investors might be able to do a better job.