TOPLINE The plight of Black players on the England national team who were hit with a torrent of racist abuse after the team’s loss at the 2020 Euro final last Sunday has taken center stage on Instagram this week, with a particular focus on 23-year-old Marcus Rashford, who has opened up in-depth about his personal experience since the game.&nbsp;



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-key-facts">KEY FACTS</h3>



Data from social media tracking firm Newship shows the 12 posts with the most comments on Instagram since Sunday all concerned at least one of the three Black players on England’s team—Rashford, Bukayo Saka, and Jadon Sancho—who have all been attacked for missing penalties during the final shootouts against Italy.&nbsp;



<div class="wp-block-image"><figure class="aligncenter size-large is-resized"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/GettyImages-1328724051-1024x683.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-51885" width="675" height="450" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/GettyImages-1328724051-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/GettyImages-1328724051-300x200.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/GettyImages-1328724051-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/GettyImages-1328724051-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/GettyImages-1328724051-2048x1365.jpg 2048w" sizes="(max-width: 675px) 100vw, 675px" /><figcaption> (Photo by Charlotte Tattersall/Getty Images)</figcaption></figure></div>



These posts, earning up to 4.6 million likes and hundreds of thousands of comments, ranged from reporting on the attacks by major British news outlets like BBC News and Sky Sports to more personal posts about the players.&nbsp;



The vast majority centered around Rashford, a Manchester United striker who has published multiple top-trending posts since England’s loss, including an in-depth reaction the day after the game which drew the most comments (230,000) of anything published on Instagram this week.&nbsp;



In the popular July 12 post, lauded in the comments by a number of other high-profile soccer stars, Rashford apologized to fans for missing the penalty, but said he will “never” apologize “for who I am and where I came from.”&nbsp;



He also highlighted the response to the defacing of a mural of his face in his hometown of Withington, Manchester, saying it brought him to the verge of tears to see fans&nbsp;<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/football/2021/jul/16/marcus-rashford-mural-racial-police-manchester-artwork" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">cleaning up the vandalism.</a>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-crucial-quote">CRUCIAL QUOTE&nbsp;</h3>



“I’ve grown into a sport where I expect to read things about myself, whether it be the colour of my skin, where I grew up, or, most recently where I decide to spend my time off the pitch,” Rashford wrote. “I can take critique of my performance all day long, my penalty was not good enough. It should have gone in but I will never [apologize] for who I am or where I came from.”



<div class="wp-block-image"><figure class="aligncenter size-large is-resized"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/GettyImages-1329410687-1024x683.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-51886" width="612" height="408" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/GettyImages-1329410687-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/GettyImages-1329410687-300x200.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/GettyImages-1329410687-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/GettyImages-1329410687-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/GettyImages-1329410687-2048x1365.jpg 2048w" sizes="(max-width: 612px) 100vw, 612px" /><figcaption> (Photo by Alex Livesey &#8211; Danehouse/Getty Images)</figcaption></figure></div>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-tangent">TANGENT</h3>



Though neither gained as much engagement as Rashford’s, both Saka and Sancho, who are 19 and 21 years old, respectively, also posted statements on social media reflecting on the game. “There are no words to tell you how disappointed I was with the result of my penalty,” wrote Saka to over 2.5 milion likes and supportive comments from fellow Arsenal players Ben White, Joe Willock and more. Meanwhile, Sancho deemed missing the penalty “by far the worst feeling I’ve felt in my career.”&nbsp;



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-key-background">KEY BACKGROUND&nbsp;</h3>



The loss at last week’s match—which marked the first time England has reached a major final since winning the World Cup in 1966—immediately sparked a torrent of racist attacks against the young trio on social media. The abuse was quickly&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/roberthart/2021/07/12/racist-abuse-targeted-at-black-england-players-denounced-by-uks-boris-johnson-fa-and-prince-william/?sh=5a388c0d1b65">condemned</a>&nbsp;by England’s Football Association, U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson and even Prince William, and arrests have since been made in relation to the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.espn.com/soccer/england-eng/story/4432974/arrests-made-over-racist-abuse-of-england-players" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">offensive comments.</a>&nbsp;The targeted players have pushed for meaningful action from social media companies to prevent the online hate from resurfacing.&nbsp;



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-chief-critic">CHIEF CRITIC&nbsp;</h3>



“To the social media platforms @instagram @twitter @facebook I don’t want any child or adult to have to receive the hateful and hurtful messages that me Marcus and Jadon have received this week,” Saka wrote. “I knew instantly the kind of hate that I was about to receive and that is a sad reality that your powerful platforms are not doing enough to stop these messages.”



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-further-reading">FURTHER READING&nbsp;</h3>



<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/roberthart/2021/07/12/racist-abuse-targeted-at-black-england-players-denounced-by-uks-boris-johnson-fa-and-prince-william/?sh=5a388c0d1b65">“Racist Abuse Targeted At Black England Players Denounced By U.K.’s Boris Johnson, FA And Prince William”</a>&nbsp;(Forbes)



By Jemima McEvoy, Forbes Staff

Italy v England – UEFA Euro 2020: Final

‘All I Can Say Is Sorry’: England’s Black Soccer Players’ Experiences With Racism Dominated Instagram This Week

TOPLINE: British politicians and football officials condemned racist abuse lobbed at a number of England soccer players Sunday after the team lost the Euro 2020 final to Italy in penalty shootouts, following a day of unrest as rowdy crowds gathered in London and across England to watch the match.  



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-key-facts">KEY FACTS</h3>



Torrents of racist abuse were directed at three Black England players—Marcus Rashford, Bukayo Saka and Jadon Sancho—after the trio failed to score penalties during the game’s final shootouts Sunday night.&nbsp;



England’s Football Association condemned the abuse and&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/FA/status/1414392591173492737?s=20" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">said</a>&nbsp;it is “appalled by the online racism that has been aimed at some of our England players on social media.”



Echoing the FA’s sentiment, the England team&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/England/status/1414390646169821186?s=20" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">released</a>&nbsp;a statement saying it is “disgusted that some of our squad—who have given everything for the shirt this summer—have been subjected to discriminatory abuse online after tonight&#8217;s game.”&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;



U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson also&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/BorisJohnson/status/1414465103374729220?s=20" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">backed</a>&nbsp;the team, saying they “deserve to be lauded as heroes, not racially abused on social media.”



The Metropolitan Police&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/MetPoliceEvents/status/1414380936016318464?s=20" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">said</a>&nbsp;the racist abuse is “unacceptable, will not be tolerated and… will be investigated.”&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;



The force said it <a href="https://twitter.com/MetPoliceEvents/status/1414388160595906564?s=20" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">made</a> 49 arrests during the day of the match and <a href="https://twitter.com/MetPoliceEvents/status/1414388737883131904?s=20" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">that</a> 19 officers were injured in confrontations with “volatile” crowds, <a href="https://inews.co.uk/news/england-vs-italy-police-riot-gear-break-up-england-fans-arrests-euros-final-1098789" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">including</a> those who <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/euro-2021/2021/07/11/london-descends-chaos-ahead-englands-euro-2020-final-showdown/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">stormed</a> into London’s Wembley Stadium, where the match was held, trashed Leicester Square, threw bottles and set off flares in the street.   



<figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">I am sickened by the racist abuse aimed at England players after last night’s match. It is totally unacceptable that players have to endure this abhorrent behaviour. It must stop now and all those involved should be held accountable. W&mdash; The Prince and Princess of Wales (@KensingtonRoyal) <a href="https://twitter.com/KensingtonRoyal/status/1414514323142107136?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 12, 2021</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true"><a href="https://t.co/MQoVHCYUfy">pic.twitter.com/MQoVHCYUfy</a>&mdash; FA Spokesperson (@FAspokesperson) <a href="https://twitter.com/FAspokesperson/status/1414388159769714690?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 12, 2021</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">This England team deserve to be lauded as heroes, not racially abused on social media. Those responsible for this appalling abuse should be ashamed of themselves.&mdash; Boris Johnson (@BorisJohnson) <a href="https://twitter.com/BorisJohnson/status/1414465103374729220?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 12, 2021</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true"><a href="https://t.co/MQoVHCYUfy">pic.twitter.com/MQoVHCYUfy</a>&mdash; FA Spokesperson (@FAspokesperson) <a href="https://twitter.com/FAspokesperson/status/1414388159769714690?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 12, 2021</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">Rashford, Saka and Sancho. Three Lions. 🦁🦁🦁&mdash; Sadiq Khan (@SadiqKhan) <a href="https://twitter.com/SadiqKhan/status/1414361530620125184?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 11, 2021</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
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<h2 class="wp-block-heading">CRUCIAL QUOTE</h2>



Sadiq Khan, the Mayor of London,&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/SadiqKhan/status/1414384625032613889?s=20" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">said</a>&nbsp;there is “absolutely no place for racism in football or anywhere else.” Khan called on social media companies to “act immediately to remove and prevent this hate.”



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">WHAT TO WATCH FOR</h2>



British politicians from&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/OliverDowden/status/1414489436608466946?s=20" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">across</a>&nbsp;the&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/AlexDaviesJones/status/1414471383065710594?s=20" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">political</a>&nbsp;spectrum said the online abuse underscores the need for stricter regulation for social media companies.&nbsp;



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">KEY BACKGROUND</h2>



England’s football players have been taking the knee before matches for the past year in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement. The practice, which has led to&nbsp;<a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/newsbeat-57382945" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">booing</a>&nbsp;from crowds, has continued for Euro 2020 matches. England players Home Secretary Priti Patel&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/pritipatel/status/1414483365558951937?s=20" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">said</a>&nbsp;she is “disgusted” by the “vile racist abuse” the England players—”who have given so much for our country this summer”—have been subjected to on social media. In June, Patel&nbsp;<a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/priti-patel-taking-knee-boo-england-b1865409.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">defended</a>&nbsp;the right of fans to boo England players for taking the knee in protest of racism, describing it as “gesture politics.” Over the course of the tournament, fans and politicians alike have been quick to&nbsp;<a href="https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/hypocrite-priti-patel-celebrates-after-24488499" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">accuse</a>&nbsp;Patel of hypocrisy when showing her support for the team. English football clubs, players and organizations have previously orchestrated social media boycotts to&nbsp;<a href="https://www.itv.com/news/granada/2021-04-30/manchester-united-report-350-increase-in-online-abuse-towards-players-as-club-joins-social-media-boycott" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">protest</a>&nbsp;the abuse players face. Rashford has been&nbsp;<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/football/2021/may/27/marcus-rashford-receives-racial-abuse-social-media-after-europa-league-loss" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">open</a>&nbsp;about the racist abuse he faces on social media, which he has previously reported to the police.&nbsp;&nbsp;



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">FURTHER READING</h2>



<a href="https://www.reuters.com/lifestyle/sports/fa-condemns-racist-abuse-players-following-englands-final-loss-2021-07-12/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">FA condemns racist abuse of players after England&#8217;s Euro 2020 final loss</a> (Reuters)



By Robert Hart, Forbes Staff

Racist Abuse Targeted At Black England Players Denounced By U.K.’s Boris Johnson, FA And Prince William

The Stevanato Group began 71 years ago by crafting specialty bottles for perfume and wine. Now they are perfectly positioned to profit from packaging pandemic cures.



At the height of Italy’s lockdown in April, factories were shuttered across the country. But in Piombino Dese, a small town about 20 miles outside of Venice, the hulking glass-cutting machines at the Stevanato Group kept whirring along, spitting out millions of ampoules and syringes. Hundreds of employees donned face masks to work around the clock in three daily shifts, seven days a week – making everything from insulin pen cartridges to miniature glass barrels and — most pressingly — millions of tiny sterile vials, each one smaller than a single fluid ounce, that one day will house doses of a Covid-19 vaccine.



“Every Saturday and Sunday, even on Easter, I went to work alongside my employees to show that we were in the trenches as well,” says Franco Stevanato, the 46-year-old CEO of the group and grandson of its founder, Giovanni.



Vaccines, like most injectable drugs, need to be packaged in sterile glass. Glass is essentially impermeable to corrupting gases like oxygen while even high-grade plastic lets some air inside. Making these vials was a big business even before Covid-19 appeared in January. Last year, the global pharmaceutical industry purchased some 12 billion vials. The Stevanato Group, a 71-year-old family-owned firm, provided more than 2 billion of those (The company is also the world’s largest manufacturer of cartridges for insulin pens). A Covid-19 vaccine, which likely will have to be administered in two separate injections, will require billions of additional vials. Stevanato expects the pandemic to drive up demand for its glass vials by 20% over the next two years.



“We proactively started to supply our customers with everything they wanted [to fight] Covid-19,” says Franco. “There was no magic strategy. We tried to move quickly and took enormous risks by anticipating some investments because it was the right time to do it.”



Other than making the actual glass, which they buy from big outfits like Corning and Schott, Stevanato does it all. They design the vials. They make the machines that craft and sterilize the containers. They work with medical regulators in 150 different markets around the world. And then many of their customers use Stevanato-made machines to package the drugs before shipping them to pharmacies and hospitals.



Those machines are a key differentiator. In 2007, when French pharma giant Sanofi needed a supply of sterile syringes that could quickly hit the market, Stevanato developed a ready-to-use syringe that didn’t require any additional sterilization. Stevanato built its own machines to wash and sterilize the syringes and patented the whole process, creating a product line that is now one of the company’s top earners.



“They really value quality and they really value customers and connecting the customer needs to their products,” says Ron Verkleeren, who manages the life sciences division at Corning and has worked with Stevanato since 2011. “That really sets them apart from the competition.”



It’s a solid if unspectacular, business. In 2019, Stevanato netted $47 million on $675 million in sales. Forbes estimates that Sergio Stevanato, the 77-year old company president and son of the founder, owns a 68% stake worth $1.8 billion. Sergio’s sons, Franco (the CEO) and Marco, the 47-year-old vice chairman, run the place now. Each own 16%, worth more than $400 million apiece.



Big changes are afoot. In June, the group raised $59 million in a private debt placement, the first time the company had ever sought outside funding. They plan to use the money to develop wearable medical devices and machines to automatically assemble them. And the family has plans to take the company public within the next three years.



“The banks we’re working with want us to go public earlier, but I want to do it when I feel sure, regardless of Covid-19,” says Franco.



<hr class="wp-block-separator"/>



Stevanato has been ramping up for a Covid-19 vaccine for months. The firm hired more than 580 new workers in the first six months of 2020. In late June, Stevanato signed a deal with Norway’s Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness and Innovations (CEPI), a Gates Foundation-backed group that is assisting with scaling nine different Covid-19 vaccine projects — including efforts by Boston-based biotech Moderna and Oxford University — to supply 100 million borosilicate glass vials for up to 2 billion doses of vaccine.



Borosilicate glass can withstand much higher temperatures than other types of glass and is more resistant to external chemicals, making it the glass of choice for sensitive medicines like vaccines. Stevanato is also supplying several other significant vaccine efforts it can’t currently disclose, along with 30 more in the early stages of development. Altogether, that’s more than a fifth of the 176 <a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://www.who.int/publications/m/item/draft-landscape-of-covid-19-candidate-vaccines" target="_blank">vaccines</a> in the works around the world.



“We talked with every glass producer and the Stevanato Group was the only group that still had uncommitted glass [vial production] capacity,” says Jim Robinson, deputy chair of CEPI’s scientific advisory committee. “They had the prize that everyone wanted.”



Vaccines face much tougher regulatory barriers than most other medicines and need to be stored in sterile glass vials and syringes, says Verkleeren of Corning. “A lot of drugs degrade in the presence of oxygen. It would take millions of years for one molecule of oxygen to permeate glass, and it would take minutes for it to go through plastic,” he says. “Quality and sterility are really, really important, because if it’s not sterile, or there’s a quality problem, and you’re injecting something into the body, it can be very, very serious.”



<hr class="wp-block-separator"/>



The Stevanato Group was founded&nbsp;on the outskirts of Venice, a city with a long tradition of glassblowing, in 1949 to make bottles for wine and perfume. The firm, originally called Soffieria Stella, grew as the postwar Italian economy boomed. By 1959, they needed more space so they relocated to Piombino Dese, an industrial town situated on the confluence of five rivers.



As food producers began to switch to plastic in the 1960s, Giovanni Stevanato took a risk and doubled down on glass, developing a machine capable of rapidly producing containers from glass tubing at scale. The 3BS machine, named after Stevanato and his three co-inventors — Bormioli, Bottaro and Bardelli — enabled the firm to double production and target a new market: the growing pharmaceutical industry. In the early 1970s, the family shut down Soffieria Stella entirely, cementing its pivot to medical glass packaging.



“The first decades were very difficult,” says Franco, particularly because the family shunned outside investment. But they made headway. “By making our own machines, we could produce 50% to 60% more than our competitors. Because my father reinvested all our profits into the company, we could advance our technology faster than the others. [They] would buy their technology in Germany, but we could double their production with the same number of employees.”



Franco and Marco entered the family business in 1998 in their mid-twenties, two years after the death of Giovanni. The first order of business: rebuffing a series of acquisition offers from larger competitors. The second order: Expanding the company abroad. In 2008, the family opened its first overseas plant — in Monterrey, Mexico — to target the North American market. Stevanato now has a network of 12 factories on four continents. In 2016 the group entered the U.S. for the first time, via its <a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://www.stevanatogroup.com/news-events/press-releases/stevanato-group-acquires-operating-units-of-balda-group/" target="_blank">acquisition</a> of German plastic packaging firm Balda for $112 million, which has two facilities in southern California.



One advantage of providing complex, specially designed packages is that they are patented and included in the regulatory approval process for new drugs, meaning that pharmaceutical firms must use the company’s packaging for the duration of the product’s lifespan. According to Aaron DeGagne, healthcare analyst at Morningstar, this effectively locks in business for decades, because drug producers often continue to use the same packaging—even after the medicine’s patent expires and it becomes a generic drug.



Spinning a sleek, Stevanato-made insulin pen between his fingers during an interview via video, Franco spells out a future in which his family firm expands into more complex products. “Now we have [insulin] pens, and tomorrow the devices will be more self-medicating, analyzing…and much more evolved,” he explains. For example, a cancer patient may be able to self-administer drug infusions at home. “This is the big challenge we want to dive into over the next 10 to 20 years.”



&#8211;Giacomo Tognini, Forbes Staff

Coronavirus Covid-19 vaccine concept –  three glass vials on black table, hypodermic syringe needle near, closeup detail (label own design – dummy data and barcode, not real product)

The Covid Vaccine Will Require Billions of Tiny Glass Vials—And This Italian Billionaire Family Is Making Them

Rocco Commisso darts around his office, gnawing a stick of nicotine gum and playing show-and-tell. &#8220;Look at the rates,&#8221; he says, holding up a plaque celebrating a $2.4 billion financing round from 2001, his cable firm&#8217;s largest ever. Up next are some personal keepsakes: a picture with fellow billionaire Charles Dolan, a golden telescope to take in views of the Catskill Mountains, a signed photo of Pelé, the Brazilian footballer. Every few minutes Commisso calls out to his assistant as if this tour is taking place against his will. &#8220;Jen, this guy wants to see all of my personal stuff!&#8221; he yells. Then he scans the room for another prize to trot out.
Forgive him the braggadocio. Commisso, 68, has risen farther than nearly anyone in America. The son of a penniless carpenter, he immigrated from Italy at age 12 unable to speak a word of English. A quirky talent for playing the accordion got him into Catholic school, the first step on a prosperous path that included stops at Columbia University and the Royal Bank of Canada before he founded his cable company, Mediacom, in 1995.
Mediacom focused on buying cable assets in rural areas, where prices were low and competition scant. The firm has increased its top line every year since its founding; revenue neared $1.9 billion in 2017. Commisso owns the company outright, and its value constitutes virtually his entire fortune. Thanks to a white-hot mergers-and-acquisitions market, the business is worth an estimated $4.3 billion—and Commisso, who makes his debut on Forbes &#8216; Billionaires list this year, seems ready to cash out.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/billionaires/2018/03/07/forbes-billionaires-2018-meet-richest-people-planet/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: Forbes Billionaires: Meet The Richest People On The Planet</a>
He founded Mediacom at a time of industry upheaval, when new federal regulations, which both restricted prices and increased competition, were scaring small cable operators into selling. As others jumped ship, he leveraged about $3 million—most of his small fortune—to start buying the cheapest cable lines available, concentrating on secondary markets in states like Iowa and Georgia. Even his offices are far off the beaten path: Mediacom HQ is in Chester, New York, a verdant speck of 12,000 people, 25 minutes from West Point.
Commisso is as much a financier as he is a cable guy—he has an M.B.A. from Columbia and spent nine years as CFO of Cablevision Industries. Mediacom&#8217;s rapid growth was enabled by arbitraging differing perceptions of cable assets in the debt and equity markets. Banks, reassured by the sector&#8217;s predictable cash flows, were willing to lend at reasonable rates even as investors, spooked by regulation, were willing to sell cheaply. In his first five years in business, Commisso made more than 20 acquisitions. Mediacom at one point accumulated $3 billion in debt, over eight times operating cash flow.
Commisso admits he borrowed to the precipice of insolvency, but he stayed afloat by keeping an eagle eye on costs and by meticulously managing his debt. &#8220;You know, we watch the store,&#8221; he says.
But now the core business is changing. The broadband generation is increasingly cutting the cord and relying on online services like Hulu, Netflix and Amazon Prime Video to entertain themselves. Over the past ten years, the number of subscribers to Mediacom&#8217;s television offerings has plummeted 38% to 821,000. This is a faster rate of decline than the 3% the industry as a whole has suffered.
Mediacom&#8217;s woes in television are fueled, in part, by its success in broadband. Commisso has aggressively invested in tech upgrades; customers in places like Cecil, Georgia, enjoy Internet speeds on par with those in Seattle and San Francisco. Mediacom&#8217;s broadband subscriber base has increased 84% over the last decade, far outpacing the industry average of 54%—and many customers are using their lightning-fast connections to watch TV and movies online.
Hence the temptation for Commisso to cash out soon. In his mind, there is little left to prove. &#8220;In the history of Italian immigration, in the business world, I don&#8217;t think there&#8217;s another one like me in the last 100 years,&#8221; he says.
ROCCO COMMISSO GREW UP in Calabria, Italy, as the country reeled from its defeat in World War II. &#8220;We were losers,&#8221; he says. &#8220;Just like the Americans coming back from Vietnam, we came back as losers.&#8221; Commisso&#8217;s father, Giuseppe, served in North Africa during the war and was captured in 1942 by the British. He spent the remainder of the war in a POW camp in Kenya. When he returned home, work was scarce.
In 1956, Giuseppe sailed to the United States to start anew. &#8220;What a great country, America,&#8221; Rocco says. &#8220;Prisoners of war got preferential treatment to come here.&#8221; Rocco, meanwhile, stayed back in Italy with his mother and two sisters. In 1962, when he was 12, they joined his older brother and father in Baden, Pennsylvania, 10 miles from Joe Namath&#8217;s hometown. The family moved to the Bronx the following year.
From the outset, New York City brought good luck. Just after Commisso arrived, he spotted an ad for a talent competition. He entered as a solo accordion act and won, which led to a gig playing intermission music at the Wakefield Theatre on East 233rd Street in the Bronx. More important, it drew the attention of the Wakefield&#8217;s manager, who wrote a letter to a local Catholic school, Mount Saint Michael Academy, and got Commisso admitted without an entrance exam, which he had arrived too late to take. &#8220;I ended up being the only kid that ever got in without taking the test,&#8221; he says.
Commisso is now one of the largest benefactors of Mount Saint Michael. But back then he could barely afford to pay his own way. As a teenager he worked long hours at his brother&#8217;s diner to come up with the $300 annual tuition.
When college application time rolled around, Commisso again relied on a favor. His gym teacher called the soccer coach at Columbia University and told him about a promising student with good grades. Within a month, Commisso, who hadn&#8217;t even played soccer in high school, was accepted to the prestigious college with a full scholarship.
A natural athlete, Commisso had shown a knack for the sport in Italy under starkly different conditions: on cement, with a ball made of rags. That training somehow translated to the Ivy League turf. By his senior year he was co-captain of the varsity squad and was invited to try out for the 1972 Olympic team. The trials went terribly. Commisso arrived out of shape, with the lung strength of a smoker; the other players ran laps around him. Still, his legacy remains strong at Columbia, which named its soccer stadium for him in 2013, in recognition of the millions of dollars he has donated to the university.
After graduating in 1971, Commisso found work at a Pfizer plant in Brooklyn, a job he kept even after beginning an M.B.A. program at Columbia in 1974. Each day he rose at 7 a.m., attended class, then headed to the plant. At midnight, when his shift ended, he spent two hours on the subway getting home to the Bronx.
Commisso graduated with one of Columbia&#8217;s top honors, the Business School Service Award, and a plan to go into investment banking. But no offers came in. &#8220;There was discrimination,&#8221; he says. &#8220;I&#8217;ll never forget the guy from Kuhn Loeb telling me, &#8216;Rocco, you know what your problem is? You&#8217;re neither Jewish nor Irish. The Italians haven&#8217;t arrived on Wall Street.'&#8221;
So Commisso took a commercial banking job at Chase Manhattan Bank (now part of JPMorgan Chase). He later moved on to the Royal Bank of Canada, where he led lending to media and communications businesses. &#8220;I got attracted in banking to these types of guys and ladies,&#8221; he says. &#8220;We used to call them &#8216;the cowboys.&#8217; The cable cowboys. Because they dressed differently than everybody, they talked differently than everybody—and they were entrepreneurs.&#8221;
In 1986 Commisso left banking to join one such cowboy—Alan Gerry, the founder of Cablevision—in Liberty, New York, a 50-minute drive from Mediacom&#8217;s headquarters. Commisso spent almost a decade as Gerry&#8217;s finance chief. &#8220;He&#8217;s one of the brightest guys I&#8217;ve ever known,&#8221; says Gerry, now 89 years old.
After the new regulations hit the industry in 1992, Gerry opted out, selling Cablevision to Time Warner for more than $3 billion in 1996. Commisso hated that decision. &#8220;This is a phenomenal time to buy as opposed to sell,&#8221; he recalls thinking. &#8220;And to prove it, I&#8217;m going to start my own company.&#8221;
<div id="attachment_35541" style="width: 510px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-35541" class=" wp-image-35541" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/Rocco-Commisso-e1520582671913-300x200.jpg" alt="Rocco Commisso Mediacom" width="500" height="333" />Commisso poses at Mediacom HQ (Franco Vogt for Forbes)</div>
COMMISSO&#8217;S OPTIMISM WAS NOT shared by his peers. That disparity only widened in 1996 when an additional batch of regulations brought new competition from telecom firms, like SBC Communications and Ameritech, that had previously been barred from the cable television space. &#8220;The fear was that the phone companies would enter the cable business and, with their stronger balance sheets and brand names, crush the cable companies,&#8221; says Craig Moffett, co-founder of the equity research firm MoffettNathanson.
That anxiety made it possible for Commisso to buy cable assets on the cheap, and he went all in. He bought his first network of cable lines, in rural Ridgecrest, California, for $18.8 million in 1996, using a loan from his old friends at Chase Manhattan.
The risk was extreme, and to outsiders Commisso might have seemed a loose cannon. He can be brash and domineering, his Calabrian accent amplifying heated bursts of profanity. But the banks trusted his background in finance.
After Ridgecrest, Commisso went on an acquisition spree, borrowing millions—then hundreds of millions—to buy up cable systems in Arizona, Delaware, Florida, Missouri, North Carolina, Mississippi and Alabama. He closed nine purchases in his first three years. &#8220;[I] was viewed as just a crazy buyer who&#8217;d buy anything that was for sale,&#8221; he says.
Commisso then invested heavily in infrastructure. To date he has spent $2.5 billion upgrading his networks, which has deterred other operators from entering his territory. Historically, Mediacom has instead fought for subscribers against satellite-television firms such as DirecTV. Phone companies, despite the early panic, never posed much of a menace.
By the end of the 1990s, gloomy forecasts for the sector had softened. Commisso seized on that and, with perfect timing, took Mediacom public on Nasdaq at a $2.5 billion valuation in February 2000, just weeks before the dot-com collapse. In all, he raised $380 million to pay down debt, and his Class B shares allowed him to retain majority voting control. &#8220;Nobody could kick me out,&#8221; he says.
The following July, Mediacom made its largest acquisition ever. After AT&amp;T became strapped for cash, it put some of its cable assets on the market. Commisso snatched up properties in Georgia, Iowa and Missouri for $2.2 billion.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/billionaires/2018/03/01/shy-billionaire-space/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: Richard Branson &#8211; The Shy Billionaire In Space</a>
By late 2002, company debt had exploded to $3 billion. The banks wouldn&#8217;t lend another dime, and Commisso was forced to end his buying binge. &#8220;What saved us was not doing the next deal,&#8221; he says. &#8220;It was a great decision to buy when we did. It was an even better decision to stop when we did.&#8221;
Through shrewd balance-sheet management and frequent refinancing, Mediacom never missed a loan payment, allowing it to stay afloat until 2009, when it finally began producing enough cash to start paying down the principal debt.
Still, stockholders were not impressed. Mediacom&#8217;s share price fell nearly 80% in the decade following its IPO. By 2010, Commisso decided he&#8217;d had enough of the public markets. He moved to buy the company outright.
After tense negotiations and a shareholder lawsuit, he acquired the business in March 2011 for roughly $600 million, a 64% premium. Borrowing against the company&#8217;s assets, he became its sole owner.
Again, his timing could not have been better.
SINCE COMMISSO TOOK Mediacom private, the company&#8217;s value has skyrocketed sevenfold. The question now is when Commisso will lock in his gains and walk away.
The company is an attractive acquisition prospect for larger firms like Altice, which has scooped up several operators in the last several years, driving up valuations across the industry. Mediacom is the dominant broadband provider in much of its territory, and its new gigabit-speed service is on par with the fastest in the country. &#8220;For a large portion of their footprint, they&#8217;ve got a clear product advantage over their competitors,&#8221; says James Ratcliffe, managing director at Evercore ISI.
Commisso is coy about plans to sell but admits he&#8217;s taken multiple meetings with investment bankers in the past year. A man who made his fortune on the basis of good timing, he seems to concede that his work is largely finished. &#8220;Unless I&#8217;m here on earth just to become the biggest, the biggest, the biggest buffoon, I&#8217;m very happy with what we have accomplished,&#8221; he says. &#8220;I&#8217;m not Warren Buffett. I&#8217;m very content.&#8221; &#8211; Written by <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/noahkirsch/" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-ga-track="contrib block byline">Noah Kirsch</a>, FORBES STAFF

New Billionaire: How A Poor Immigrant Scored A $4.3 Billion Fortune In Cable

Every four years, when the Olympics Games are held, it brings back great memories of the 1988 Seoul Games where Zambia made worldwide headlines.
We beat the Italian professionals 4-0. Believe it or not, this is still a defeat they have not forgotten. This is the same score as their recent Euro final defeat against Spain. Yet, I think the shock effect during the 1988 Games was more drastic and maybe more spectacular.
The Italians were totally stunned, they had never even heard of Zambia—from the ‘dark’ continent—let alone a certain 25-year-old who weaved magic with the mastery of his left boot; one who found a chink in the armor of the back line, or the catenaccio of the Azzurri, to score a hat-trick—Kalusha Bwalya.
Our journey started with a tough African zone qualification. First, we had to prevail over Uganda, 6-2 on aggregate, before going on to the final round of qualification against the dreaded Black Stars of Ghana. We lost the first leg of the final qualifier 0-1 and had to better that result at Independence Stadium in Lusaka. We did just that. We beat Ghana 2-0 to book our place at the Seoul Games. It was a fantastic feeling and moment for all of us and the whole country.
The whole country was buzzing with the qualification. There were mixed feelings about the draw and the teams we were drawn to play. I remember how the sports back pages were filled with our black-and-white photos; the opinions of who we would be playing and what we could achieve against great opposition.
When we got to Seoul, I remember we stayed at the same hotel as the Italians. All the players were in awe of the style and fashion that exuded from the fancied Azzurri. They were stylish; they were confident and&#8230; all that hair! I remember my teammates and I couldn’t believe it. In our plain green tracksuits, we were scared to enter the same elevator as them, so much was the respect. That respect however did not extend to the 90 minutes of the game. Besides Charles Musonda, Stone Nyirenda and I, who played in Belgium, and Johnson Bwalya who plied his trade in Switzerland, all the other players were based in Zambia—an enigma to most Europeans.
What a talent generation of footballers we had!
I still recall the goalkeeping and the cat-like agility of Efford Chabala. He was a great goal custodian. I can still recall the entire first 11 as if it were yesterday. Sir Samuel Zoom Ndlovu, our coach and mentor, named his squad: from Chabala in the goals to Manfred Chabinga, Pearson Mwanza and Edmond Mumba, solid at the back; together with Ashious Melu standing tall and ready for any challenge. We had Derby Mankinka and Bwalya—we called him ‘one man commando’ for his solo and determined moves—Charles Musonda in the center together with Samuel Chomba from the deep, and upfront with me were Wisdom Chansa and Stone Nyirenda.
Unfortunately, we lost six members of this team in the 1993 Gabon plane crash which killed 18 of Zambia’s national team players. We lost Eston Mulenga, Wisdom Chansa, Derby Mankinka, Efford Chabala, Samuel Chomba and Richard Mwanza, Chabala’s understudy.
Against the Azzurri, a constellation of stars, we were closely knit and determined that any off-field fears and admiration we had were never carried onto the pitch. I still remember how confident Italian goalkeeper, Stefano Tacconi, had been. At the back, I recall the tussles with Roberto Cravero and Mauro Tassotti.
Against all the odds, we fought on to a famous victory—a pivotal moment in the realization that African football could actually compete at the highest level. The confidence gained by this victory gave African footballers the self-belief that they could compete at the highest level with the best the game could throw at them. We heralded a new era of African football.
Our victory was one that was celebrated across the continent, even though the Olympic Games are not seen as the ultimate footballing prize.
The lessons and experiences of that championship are still valuable to the young players of this era who dream of making a trip to the Games; for Zambians it is still a warming football fairy tale. It may be decades since that victory against Italy, but it remains the single most important of any Chipolopolo triumph. Many use the victory in Seoul as a yardstick.
Since 1988, young players have dreamt of Zambia’s return to the Games. Such is the interest in the Olympic Games, that even though the football team is not going to compete in London, millions will watch the football and comparisons with our exploits in Seoul will be passionately debated.
Ultimately, it is the determination; the sacrifice of the personal athlete; the discipline and belief to do even what our inner heart may fear and the spirit of the champion, that matters most. The most important thing in the Olympics is not to win, but to take part, just as the most important thing in life is not the triumph but the struggle. The essential thing is not to have conquered but to have fought well. I wish all the Olympians well for the 2012 London Olympics. May they ‘fight’ well and get as much satisfaction out of them as I did in 1988.

Tag: Italy

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