Cimminelli's story: from the Big Bull to his father's company in South Korea

In Turin, South Korea is a special observer and is much closer than the 9 thousand kilometres that geography separates it from Italy. Among those who frantically follow the crisis in the Asian country is Simone Cimminelli: 42 years old, by trade he goes in search of unicorns, of companies to be turned into future Apple: part business angel, part risk investor. But part of his heart beats in: he is the main shareholder of Kftec, an industrial giant in the automotive world.

Cimminelli, who lives between London (he has a house in Wimbledon) and Italy, is a son of art. His father, Francesco, was very famous in football in Italy.

The surname Cimminelli is carved in stone among the fans of the Torino Calcio: Franco was president for just five years, from 2000 to 2005, and, unfortunately for him, he carries the reputation of the patron who bankrupted the club, after a management of crazy spending to buy players. Football, however, was only a 'distraction': his empire, grown under the shadow of the Mole and the Lingotto, was in plastics: he built parts for Fiat cars, when Fiat produced 700,000 vehicles a year.

Arriving from Calabria in the 1960s, Francesco, but for all of Franco, had founded his own company: it was called Ergom. These were the boom years, the years of Fiat, the largest and richest private company in Italy. From being an important company of the Agnelli family, Ergom became big and Cimminelli was successful. So successful was it that in the 1980s in the late 1990s, the then number one of the then Fiat (then FCA then Stellantis), Paolo Cantarella, when the lawyer Gianni was still the dominus (as president), an avid Granata fan, asked 'Cimmi' to come forward to buy the 'Big Bull' from the entrepreneur Massimo Vidulich, who was only two years old but already in trouble. And if Cantarella was a granata 'crashing' into the heart of Juventus' ownership, Cimminelli was instead a 'hunchback' who could not say no to his biggest client. He disappeared in 2012, two years after Torino's collapse having sold Ergom directly to Sergio Marchionne and John Elkann's Fiat. He leaves his 30-year-old son Simone to take over the reins of the family.

Cimminelli Jr. quickly learns his father's lesson: no football. With a degree from ESCP Paris and a master's degree in science from UCL London, he enters the world of finance. But the bulk of his business will continue to come from the automotive industry, albeit far away in Turin. His father bequeathed him a company called SIS Srl: it is a holding company and in its belly is also a share in a company in South Korea. The company is called Kftec (Korean Fuel Tech Corporation) and was founded in 1986 as Air Korea. In 1999, while 'Cimmi' was preparing to become the president of the Toro team, still cross-fertilising with football, Ergom formed an alliance with the Korean group, which produces filters for cars: two years later, Kftec became the supplier of filters for all of Fiat. Over the years, Cimminelli Sr. became the major shareholder: today SIS holds 34%, making it the relative majority shareholder, and the company supplies the entire car industry, from fellow countrymen KIA and Hyunday to Volvo, Nissan and Porsche.