Rocco Commisso, here is who is the billionaire who is buying Fiorentina. ANSA archive photo
FLORENCE – After James Pallotta in Rome, another American entrepreneur could land in our league. Rocco Commisso would have reached an agreement with the Della Valle family to buy Fiorentina. Negotiations would begin a year ago and would now be close to a successful conclusion. Commisso is a football fan and in the past he tried, without success, even to buy Milan from the Chinese.
Rocco Commisso, that's who the billionaire could take over from the Della Valle.
Rocco Commisso, 69, founder of the cable services giant Mediacom, would be close to concluding an agreement with the Della Valle family for the purchase of Fiorentina . The New York Times wrote it in an article published online in the Italian night.
This is not the first investment in sports for Commisso that, in 2017, bought a majority stake in the New York Cosmos football club, of which it is also president. With an estimated assets of Forbes of 4.3 billion dollars (4.5 billion in real-time surveys), the Italian-American entrepreneur is among the richest owners of a football club in the world.
Commisso was born in Marina di Giosa Ionica on November 25, 1949 and in 1962, just twelve, he emigrated to America with his family when the pope Giuseppe, a penniless carpenter, decided to seek his fortune in the US.
Arrived without knowing a word of English, he did all his studies in the USA, up to Columbia University which gave him a scholarship and to which he remained very close: in 2013 the university named his football stadium in his name, in virtue of many donations.
After working in Bank of Canada, he was the financial director of Cablevision, bought by Time Warner in 1995 for 9 years. That same year, Commisso founded his Mediacom, a company that has consistently closed its growth budgets, according to the card that Forbes dedicates to him.
The magazine writes that Commisso created Mediacom at a time of upheaval in the industry, both due to the new federal regulations and to the increase in prices and competition that scared small cable operators into selling. "While others jumped – reads the Forbes website -, he used about 3 million dollars – much of his small fortune – to start buying the cheapest cable lines available, focusing on secondary markets in states like Iowa and Georgia . Its offices are also far away: Mediacom HQ is in Chester, New York, a verdant speck of 12,000 people, 25 minutes from West Point ".
In 2011 the company he founded left the Stock Exchange and Commisso acquired total control, with 87% of the shares and making his appearance for the first time in the prestigious Billionaires list drawn up by Forbes (source Agi).
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Source: Blitz Quotidiano