Roberto Colaninno, Chairman of Vespa-Maker Piaggio, Dies at 80

Roberto Colaninno, the Italian businessman known for organizing Europe’s biggest hostile takeover in the 1990s for the phone carrier Telecom Italia SpA, has died. He was 80.

Colaninno, chairman and chief executive officer of Vespa-maker Piaggio & C. SpA, died late Friday in the northern Italian city of Mantua, according to a statement from Omniaholding SpA, his family’s financial company. The cause of death wasn’t disclosed.

Roberto Colaninno in 2010

Photographer: Giuseppe Aresu/Bloomberg

Telecom Italia, Italy’s biggest phone carrier, was bought out in 1999 by a group of Italian entrepreneurs led by Colaninno. The investors, dubbed “courageous captains” by then Prime Minister ...