Free God's Banker by Rupert Cornwell Page B

outwardly, as well as inwardly, the perfect and complete banker. She would try to persuade him, with small success, to read books and take an interest in the arts. With her fondness of bright colours and antique furniture, she would try, again without great success, to persuade visitors of the taste and animation of their flat in Milan and country villa at Drezzo, close to the Swiss border. But, then at least, these shortcomings did not matter; her husband's dimension was finance, where he excelled, and the moment could not have been better.
    Now that Sindona was losing interest in Italy after the Bastogi setback, Calvi, as managing director and chief executive of Ambrosiano, was his natural heir as leader of Catholic finance in Milan. He had both the conveniences of the IOR and the resources of his bank to hand. The combination of these with Calvi's own stealthy and perverted financial genius was to be irresistible. Between 1972 and 1975 he endowed Ambrosiano with two banks and a large insurance company, which in turn controlled other smaller banking interests. It would emerge as the most powerful private financial group in Italy.
    In so narrow a market as Milan, a handful of manipulators was enough. Calvi, of course, was one, while two of the others were his mentor Sindona and a formidable lady called Anna Bonomi who ran a group called Invest. They were to be the main partners in the dealings which secured Calvi's Italian kingdom. There was also a third, more passive, partner—the IOR. The illegal nature of the transactions by which he won control for La Centrale of the Toro insurance company and a thriving Lombardy bank, Credito Varesino, would eventually lead to Calvi's downfall. But the acquisition of his other bank, Banca Cattolica del Veneto, is perhaps even more deserving of examination, as an illustration of both the laws of the financial jungle which then obtained, and the complicity between Calvi, Sindona and the Vatican bank.
    All stemmed from two apparently unrelated events: the decision of Paul VI to reduce the Church's more conspicuous holdings in Italy, and the purchase by Sindona in 1969 of an insignificant leather tanning company called Pacchetti.
    Banca Cattolica del Veneto had been in the hands of the IOR since the War. It was deeply entrenched in the Veneto, that region of Northern Italy inland from Venice, where respect for the Church is greatest and the Christian Democrat vote remains largest. Then, as now, the bank was a marvellous investment. Its property assets, notably the beautiful old buildings which would house its branches, were enormous. It was moreover flush with the savings of the faithful, and spread over one of the parts of Italy where the famous economia sommersa, or submerged economy, was most dynamic. Indeed, in 1981 the Banca Cattolica del Veneto announced the highest net profits of any bank in the country.
    The same could not be said of Pacchetti, but Sindona had his own plans. Out of this nondescript concern, he intended to conjure a financial creature then unknown in Italy, but all the rage in the United States: the conglomerate. Sindona's model was Gulf and Western. Pacchetti saw its shares pumped higher and higher, and found itself the owner of an odd lot of companies in anything from steel to household cleansers. But after Bastogi, Sindona was interested in it no longer. It was time to find a buyer for Pacchetti, and a bait that would tempt him.
    At this point, the three-way deal between himself, Calvi and the IOR was concocted. In return for buying Pacchetti, Calvi would gain the option to acquire from the Vatican a controlling interest in Banca Cattolica del Veneto. Everyone was content, Sindona was to make a great deal of money, Calvi would gain a bank, and the IOR could contemplate the genesis of a huge Catholic grouping around Ambrosiano, which would be a natural ally. In March 1972, La Centrale duly announced that it had paid the equivalent of $45 million for 37 per cent of