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letsdothis3 ago

http://www.fundinguniverse.com/company-histories/serono-s-a-history/

In 1906 the Italian scientist Cesare Serono founded the Istituto Farmalogico Serono S.p.A. in Rome...

The Vatican obtained control of the Istituto Farmalogico after Cesare Serono's death. Day-to-day management was in the hands of a man named Bertarelli who had worked his way up from financial comptroller to general manager. When Bertarelli died in 1965, the company's managers began turning to his son Fabio for advice. Three years later the board of directors invited the younger Bertarelli to take over the official management position.

Fabio Bertarelli had distanced himself from Serono as a young man. He fought in World War II with the Italian marines and was imprisoned by both the Germans and the Russians before escaping. After the war, he tried to work with his father at the institute but left shortly because of too much father-son conflict. He then gained some business experience selling glass and animal feed in Brazil, but by the early 1950s was back in Italy racing sailboats and only occasionally working at Serono. Once he was in charge of the company, however, his entrepreneurial flair blossomed. Bertarelli's flexible, responsive management transformed the small Istituto Farmalogico Serono into an internationally known company with a commanding presence in the infertility treatment niche. ...

Bertarelli's next success was to secure ownership of Serono. The notorious Italian investor Michele Sindona had gained control of the company in the late 1960s as the Vatican's shares somehow ended up with firms he owned. In the early 1970s, Bertarelli organized a syndicate of small investors to challenge Sindona's ownership. Sindona fled Italy in 1974 with warrants out for his arrest. His shares were dumped on the market and Bertarelli managed to gain control of about three quarters of Serono at a low price.

Michele Sindona https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michele_Sindona

Michele Sindona (May 8, 1920 – March 22, 1986) was an Italian banker and convicted felon. Known in banking circles as "The Shark", Sindona was a member of Propaganda Due (#0501),[1] a secret lodge of Italian Freemasonry, and had clear connections to the Sicilian Mafia. He was fatally poisoned in prison while serving a life sentence for the murder of lawyer Giorgio Ambrosoli.

..Within a year of the Gambino family's choosing him to manage their heroin profits, Sindona had bought his first bank. He also became a friend of future Pope Giovanni Battista Montini's; Montini was at the time Cardinal of the Archdiocese of Milan. By the time Montini became Pope Paul VI, Sindona had acquired, through his holding company Fasco, many more Italian banks, and his progress continued right up to the beginning of his association with the Vatican Bank in 1969. Huge amounts of money moved from Sindona's banks through the Vatican to Swiss banks, and he began speculating against major currencies on a large scale..

In 1972, Sindona purchased a controlling interest in Long Island's Franklin National Bank from Lawrence Tisch. He was hailed as "the saviour of the lira" and was named "Man of the Year" in January 1974 by the US ambassador to Italy, John Volpe. But that April, a sudden stock market crash led to what is known as Il Crack Sindona. ..

..According to the Mafia pentito Francesco Marino Mannoia, Sindona laundered the proceeds of heroin trafficking for the Bontade-Spatola-Inzerillo-Gambino network. The mafiosi were determined to get their money back and would play an important role in Sindona's attempt to save his banks.