Waiting for Cuccia

Is the end of an era nigh in Italy? Investors thought so in mid-April, after the 92-year-old éminence grise of Italian finance, Enrico Cuccia, was admitted to hospital with a respiratory illness. Shares in Mediobanca rose in the expectation that the old man’s departure would bring long-overdue reform at the shady merchant bank.

But then came the predictable news from a worker at Milan’s Luigi Sacco hospital: Cuccia is sitting up in bed and reading War and Peace, suggesting the wily Sicilian intends to stick around for another few chapters.