Umberto Agnelli, (November 1, 1934 - 28 May2004) was the chairman of Italian carmaker Fiat from early 2003 until his death. Agnelli was born in Lausanne in Switzerland. Agnelli was a senior executive in Fiat which is an Agnelli family company but was sidelined by his brother Gianni Agnelli until his brother died in 2003. He then took over the Fiat group, which also controlled Italian newspapers, and the Juventus soccer club, of which he had served as chairman. Umberto Agnelli was in the process of restoring Fiat's balance sheet after the company's balance sheet, market share, and share value were all in decline. Despite this, Forbes magazine estimated he was the world's 68th richest man with an approximate net worth of $1.5 billion US.
He died in Turin, Italy of cancer at 69. He and his wife Allegra Agnelli had three children, of whom two survive. Elder son Giovanni Alberto Agnelli was groomed to succeed at Fiat but died young of cancer in 1997. Younger son Andrea was named a Fiat director after Umberto Agnelli's death, though Gianni Agnelli's grandson John Elkann, named vice chairman, the next likely family head of the company. Umberto's daughter Anna also survives.
External links
Forbes Rich List entry (http://www.forbes.com/finance/lists/10/2003/LIR.jhtml?passListId=10&passYear=2003&passListType=Person&uniqueId=5844&datatype=Person/)
Yahoo news story on death (http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20040528/ap_on_bi_ge/obit_agnelli_3/)
UmbertoAgnelli was born in the Swiss lakeside city of Lausanne, one of the seven children of Virginia Bourbon del Monte, princess of San Faustino.
Paradoxically, it was the greatest tragedy of Umberto's life - the death of his son from a rare form of stomach cancer in 1997 at the age of 33 - that opened the way for him to take over the leadership of the group when Gianni himself died six years later.
Umberto, who listed his leisure interests as golf, modern art and skiing, is survived by his second wife, Allegra Caracciolo, with whom he had two children, Andrea and Anna.
Agnelli was born at his parents' country house, Villar Perosa, near Turin, Italy as the son of Eduardo Agnelli (1892-1935) and Donna Virginia Bourbon del Monte (1899-1945), a daughter of the Prince di San Faustino and his Kentucky-born wife Jane Campbell.
Agnelli was named senator for life in 1991 and subscribed to the independent parliamentary group; he was later named a member of the senate's defence commission.
Giovanni Alberto, the son of Gianni's younger brother, UmbertoAgnelli, died of a rare form of cancer in 1997 at age 33 while he was being groomed by his uncle to head the Fiat Group.
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