Today is a very sad day for the women and men of Duferco. Bruno Bolfo, founder of our Group, has left us: the man who brought our projects to life and made us who we are. He passed away quietly, in keeping with his sober and reserved style, confirming even in this final moment his unmistakable capacity for understatement.
Bruno was a true legend in global steelmaking.
In 1979 as a brilliant young executive at Siderexport, the trading company of Italsider during the last century , he decided to embark on an entrepreneurial adventure which saw him found Duferco in São Paulo, Brazil, together with a small group of colleagues, all from Liguria. He already showed himself to be a courageous pioneer.
Within a few short years, the company grew to become Brazil’s leading exporter, supplying the steel needs of Asian markets through the emerging Brazilian steel industry. The business also expanded in North America and, in the mid-1980s, the company moved first to New York and then to Europe in order to seize, at close range, the opportunities offered by steel procurement from the countries of the former Soviet empire.
Then, in the mid-1990s, with extraordinary vision and remarkable entrepreneurial courage, Bruno was among the first to understand that the advent of the Internet was destined to reduce the information asymmetries upon which trading was based. As a consequence he launched a strategy to enter steel production, which quickly led us to become the thirty-fourth largest steel producer in the world by 2004, with almost eight million tonnes per year.
We had plants in Italy, Belgium, France, Denmark, Macedonia, Russia, the United States, Guatemala and South Africa, with nearly twenty thousand employees. It was a difficult yet exhilarating phase: acquisitions, alliances and major investments marked the growth of our family. In Belgium alone, within a few years, we invested more than one and a half billion euros in modernisation projects and new plants.
Drawing on the expertise of Italy’s public steel industry, which has since disappeared, Bruno rebuilt a management team capable of governing a global and complex system. He did so with his sharp vision, his charisma and his constant attention not only to business, but above all to the people who worked with us.
Bruno was a kind and charming man, but also tenacious and determined in his decisions. He had understood that Duferco had become a platform destined to diversify into sectors adjacent to and complementary to steelmaking. This gave birth to the relationship and joint venture with the Romeo family in Novamarine; this is how we decided to enter the energy sector.
With great generosity, in the final phase of his professional life, he supported a delicate generational transition that brought Augusto and Vittoria Gozzi to the leadership of the Group.
The greatest lesson he leaves us is to always dare, with optimism and trust in our upcoming youth and in the future. He also leaves us with a profound conviction: that an entrepreneurial spirit can be an extraordinary expression of human creativity.
For me, having had the extraordinary privilege of working alongside him, he leaves above all one fundamental lesson: to create value, one must have balance and respect for everyone. Not only for colleagues, but also for customers, suppliers and all stakeholders.
We will miss every aspect of his extraordinary personality. We will strive never to betray his memory, following his example and carrying forward our work every day in the service of the company and those who work for it.
To his beloved wife and children, we extend our most heartfelt embrace, together with the closeness and affection of the entire Duferco family.
Antonio Gozzi