The Lady Magnate of Milan

In Italy, where women are known more for their success in the kitchen than in the countinghouse, the world of high finance has long been considered the preserve of males. Now, because of the publicity accompanying the merger of two giant real estate companies, Italians have become aware that a woman, Anna Bonomi-Bolchini, is giving their country's top financial wizards a real run for their money.

Long before Anna's real estate and construction company, Beni Immobili Italia, last year joined SACIE, a larger rival in the building business, the 60-year-old Milan matron had become rejected--and feared--by captains of Italian industry. As far back as 1956, Alberto Pirelli, the tire magnate, chose Anna to put up his empire's 32-story headquarters in Milan. "I look at the price and the quality," he said, "not the sex." Three years ago she initiated a move by major shareholders of La Centrale, a leading holding company, to take power away from its longtime president Luigi Bruno. She did not let sentiment stand in the way; she used the 100,000 shares of La Centrale stock that he had sold her at a bargain price a decade earlier when his daughter married her son. For last year's real estate merger, she bought up shares of SACIE's parent company, a conglomerate called SAFFA, until she had control.

Quizzes From Carlo. Now Anna can take her place among moguls of Italian business. Her new real estate company will have assets of $160 million. In addition, her holdings extend to the fields of toothpaste (one-third of Italy's output), matches (70% of national production), cosmetics, chemicals, highway construction, paper, banking and mutual funds. Her Postal Market Italiana is the country's first and largest mail-order house. Because she juggles her portfolio constantly, it is difficult to estimate Anna's net worth. She and her husband Giuseppe Bolchini, a respected but lesser-known financier, pay taxes on an income of $800,000 a year.

Anna inherited Beni Immobili Italia after Carlo Bonomi, a millionaire who adopted her as a child, died in 1940. When a group of relatives challenged her inheritance on the grounds that Anna was Carlo's illegitimate child and thus not an heir under Italian law, she fought a hard court battle and won. After that, it was merely a matter of following in her father's footsteps. "I was his only child," Anna recalled recently for the Italian magazine Oggi (she refuses to see foreign journalists). "Often he would take me with him to visit his workshop, and he always quizzed me on the jobs he was doing: 'Tell me, Anna, how would you design this palace?' " Anna credits her father with instilling in her "the religion of work and duty."

Crack the Whip. She practices her father's religion during business hours only. Whereas Carlo was a lifetime lira-pincher who often rode the trains third class and packed his own lunch, Anna lives the life of an empress after work. She maintains an 11th century palace, a hunting lodge and a sumptuous apartment, all crammed with priceless paintings. She keeps her figure trim, dresses elegantly, and entertains salons full of jet-setters and visiting royalty.

Anna still professes a certain dedication to the kitchen. "The family [including three children, all married] comes ahead of everything else," she told Oggi. "At home, I do not crack the whip. I obey. I consider myself a reasonably docile wife." There is nothing docile about her ambitions. Already responsible for building some of Milan's biggest skyscrapers and a nearby 1,500-family satellite city called Milano San Felice, she now plans to construct low-cost housing projects around the periphery of Milan and to tear down and rebuild a part of the aging downtown area.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.