Compiled 10 February 2016, updated 27 July 2025
This is the story of Guido Caprotti, his friend Marco Brunelli and the ‘beautiful things’ they did together.
In 1956, Guido Caprotti, with the help of his friend Marco Brunelli, had managed to get the Caprotti family, with Brunelli, the Crespifamily and other Italian minority shareholders, to ally themselves with Nelson Rockefeller, who intended to found a chain of supermarkets in Italy.
Marco Brunelli was thus the first Italian individual shareholder (*) of the newly founded company, whose majority capital and management was in the hands of the Americans of IBEC.
Source: ‘Buying American Style. Le origini della grande distribuzione italiana 1945- 1971″ by Emanuela Scarpellini.Ed. Il Mulino 2001
(*) the Caprotti brothers held 18% = 9% to Bernardo and 9% to Guido, until Claudio Caprotti came of age, at which point each of the three had 6% individually.
In 1961 Guido had also founded GS (Generale Supermercati) with Marco Brunelli.
The first supermarket bore the sign ‘Romana Supermarkets’.
That was the same year that the Americans bought Esselunga ‘s shares from Nelson Rockefeller’s IBEC.
In 1966, the company was sold to SME.
Guido Caprotti was later CEO of Manifattura Caprotti.
It should be noted that his fraternal friend, Marco Brunelli, was also very close to my mother Giorgina Venosta and her second husband, Aldo Bassetti.
Not only did he write to me when my mother passed away in 2021, but on 14 December 2022 he attended Aldo’s funeral ceremony, which was held in Brera.
He also always came to Uncle Guido’s memorial services.
Giuseppe Caprotti
It is said of his friend Marco Brunelli that:
Marco Brunelli is one of the pioneers of Italian large-scale distribution. At the end of the 1950s he founded Esselunga with Nelson Rockefeller and Bernardo Caprotti and then left it to launch first GS and then in 1974 Finiper, what was to be his holding in large-scale distribution and real estate. In that same 1974, it was Finiper’s turn to open Italy’s first hypermarket while ten years later, in 1984, it would be the turn of the Bel Paese’s first shopping centre. But that was not enough. Today Finiper has about 2.7 billion in revenues thanks to 26 hypermarkets under the ‘Iper la grande I’ brand and more than 170 supermarkets under the Unes and U! In short, it is a player with what it takes to launch the most robust recruitment programme in Milan in recent years.
Giorgio Lonardi
Business and Finance , 25 January 2016
p.s.: on the leadership in the family, for some time, there was some confusion, also because the Americans of IBEC did not know (*) who the Caprotti brothers were.
Rockefeller, after the dinner described in “Le Ossa dei Caprotti” sent a telegram of thanks to Guido, not Bernardo Caprotti.
Below: La Stampa of 10 February 1959 celebrates the opening of the first Vegè supermarket in Turin and mentions Guido Caprotti.
On current events read : New Princes buys Carrefour Italia supermarkets
(*) the passage is on page 60 of the book.
