Giancarlo Giambrone: The Life and Times of one of the World's Great Financial Minds

By Joe Reina

The roaring '20s was the wildest decade of the 20th century! It was a heady time, dominated by two significant events, Prohibition, and the soaring stock market. More alcohol was consumed during Prohibition than before the law was enacted. And loose money, only ten percent down, bought anything from stocks to autos, homes, and appliances. With the stock market open to everyone, fortunes were made and lost in days.

Enter this era with Giancarlo Giambrone, a Sicilian emigre of a wealthy, centuries-old olive oil business, vowing to earn his own fortune. Join him as he becomes a stockbroker, foresees the 1929 market crash, and traverses the depression, becoming even wealthier. Enjoy his successes, romances, travels, and contributions to society, while surviving tragedy and standing up to FDR.

Joe Reina Bio

Meet Joe Reina, entrepreneurial businessman turned author. Joe came up through the ranks in the apparel industry from salesman to manager, to store owner, business mogul, and real estate developer. An avid reader of history, he took the lessons from the past to navigate the economic ups and downs of the mid-twentieth century. His businesses entailed international travel and enabled him to explore a good part of the world. That exposure helped satisfy his lifelong desire to experience the pleasure of meeting people all over the world and then share his travels with his family and friends.

Throughout his successes, Joe never forgot his roots of growing up on the "hill" of St. Louis and the fortitude of his spirited mother, an emigre from Sicily. He wrote the book, The Goat Sleeps in the Kitchen, to tell her remarkable story of becoming a successful businesswoman in the early twentieth century. His fascination with that era resulted in the birth of his fictional alter ego, Giancarlo Giambrone, one of the world's great entrepreneurs. Joe lives in Scottsdale, Arizona.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Covenant Books, Inc.
• Release date: Aug 17, 2022
• ISBN: 9781638143154

Book preview

Table of Contents

Cover

Title

Copyright

Acknowledgement

Introduction

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

About the Author

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Giancarlo Giambrone

THE LIFE AND TIMES OF ONE OF THE WORLD’S GREAT FINANCIAL MINDS

Joe Reina

ISBN 978-1-63814-314-7 (Paperback)

ISBN 979-8-88644-534-3 (Hardcover)

ISBN 978-1-63814-315-4 (Digital)

Copyright © 2022 Joe Reina

All rights reserved

First Edition

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods without the prior written permission of the publisher. For permission requests, solicit the publisher via the address below.

Covenant Books

11661 Hwy 707

Murrells Inlet, SC 29576

www.covenantbooks.com

Giancarlo, February 1950

To Jean and Carl Reina.

Acknowledgement

Iwant to thank Patricia Benesh of AuthorAssist.com once again for her patience and perseverance in guiding me through the manuscript. Thanks to Michelle Holmes and the staff at Covenant Books; as always, there is no way we would have ever gone to print without their help. And my sincere gratitude to Carolyn Langston for proofreading and helping put the final touches on the story.

Introduction

Ihave often been asked in what period of time I would like to have lived, and without hesitation, it would have to be the 1920s. Life was wild and crazy, and if one had a keen business mind, a fortune could be made. There was a period from 1922 to early 1929 where the stock market offered easy access to achieve wealth—$2,000 bought $20,000 worth of America's blue-chip stocks!

I have been fascinated by the Roaring Twenties my entire life. Those living in that era have been deemed the Lost Generation. That tag came from the fact that during World War I, life seemed to be of little value, considering that twenty million people lost their lives in the war. There was a total lack of patriotism. The Spanish flu deaths of 1918 added to the sense of loss.

Prohibition and the wild stock market brought insanity to the country. Everyone got into the stock market, it was no longer an opportunity for the rich, there was no class distinction, shoeshine boys were getting touts from their patrons, and one could buy stocks on credit with 10 percent down. Fortunes were made and lost overnight.

Money was loose. One could purchase anything on easy ridiculous credit terms. The automobile business was incredible. There was this insane appetite for material things, and it seemed there was no end to the demands by the general public.

Ford led the band. A new Ford or Chevrolet cost $500 to $600, electric washing machines $80 to $90, radios $60 to $200, and a new home $6,000 to $9,000. Those items could be purchased with ten percent down.

Prohibition of alcoholic beverages became a law officially in 1920. People consumed more alcohol during the 1920s than before Prohibition was enacted. It was life in the fast lane. Prohibition brought the speakeasy, and people flocked to them. Most of these establishments were operated by mobsters, and this was especially true in the major cities. They were the major source of entertainment for those making big money in the stock market. Entertainers and other employees of speakeasies were well paid. Speakeasies were an escape for the rich, often havens for wealthy businessmen to wine and dine their clients, paving the way for high-priced prostitutes. Morality dropped to an all-time low.

Income tax rates were low, the high bracket for middle-income level was twenty-five percent, but no one was paying them. Taxes had reached as high as seventy-two percent in 1917 to help pay for the war effort, but were reduced after the war. The low bracket was four percent. There was no withholding tax. The internal revenue system did not exist until 1955. Brokerage houses and financial institutions were not mandated to send financial information on investors to the government.

The general public ignored income tax. Thus, most income earned was reinvested almost daily. People were borrowing money on their homes, pawning their material things, and buying stocks.

The Rockefellers, Carnegies, Fords, Roosevelts, Vanderbilts, J. P. Morgan, and all the stalwarts of the industrial revolution entered the twentieth century with vast sums of money and became multimillionaires in the first thirty years of the century! It stemmed from the fact that they paid little or no tax on what they earned.

This changed in the early days of the Depression when Franklin Delano Roosevelt became president in 1933. He established government agencies to put people back to work, adding millions of government jobs and raising income taxes on the wealthy and corporations to pay for these programs. The federal payroll ultimately caused the US debt to escalate to an extreme deficit.

During this historical time, I feel confident I would have amassed a fortune and would have entered the 1930s like so many with wealth and earned even more money during the Depression.

Join me aboard my time capsule and travel back to the Roaring Twenties—the wildest decade in US history—and meet Giancarlo Giambrone and share his journey through life, his successes, his romantic ups and downs, his marriage to the love of his life, and the tragedy he and his wife managed to survive. This novel is based on the historical facts of the era.

Chapter 1

Siracusa, Sicily

Icompleted my studies in the summer of 1918 at the oldest Jesuit school in the world in Messina, Sicily. It was founded in the sixteenth century and was the original Jesuit school in the world. My father wrote a letter to his professor friend at the University of Bologna, where he completed his undergraduate work and asked him to enroll me for the fall semester. In early August, we went by train to Agrigento and boarded a ship for Rome. We checked into the famed Hotel d'Inghilterra and had lunch at a nearby Ristorante, La Campana, and afterward, we walked the city center. It was one of those fortunate days with glorious weather, the sun bright in the cloudless blue sky.

We had dinner at a small trattoria in Campo de' Fiori, and my father insisted we share a bottle of wine, a first for me.

The next morning, we had a cappuccino at Caffe Greco, and I was very impressed with the photos of Americans on the walls. I could not believe it was founded in 1760. I had studied American history in school and vowed to visit someday. Little did I know the journey before me.

My father knew Rome very well, having visited many times, and we went to all the sights the next two days, the Fountain of Trevi, the Pantheon, Piazza Navona, the Vatican, many churches, and the significant shopping areas. He bought an entire wardrobe for me because the winters in Bologna were much more severe than Siracusa. I tried on a new shirt and tie, along with new shoes, and looked in the mirror; the clothes changed my looks. I felt I looked older, and the shoes made me look taller than my five-foot-eight-inch body.

On the fourth day, we took a train to my new home, Bologna, and we rented an apartment on top of a coach house near the university. We went to a bank, and he opened a checking account for me and placed a bank draft in lire, the equivalent of $15,000. This was a new experience, and although we had studied bookkeeping and finance in school, which included writing checks, I had never written one.

We walked around the beautiful campus, and I learned it was the oldest university in the world, founded in 1088! It withstood wars, religious uprisings, the transitions of control of Italy by many foreign countries, the plague, political strife, and all the historical calamities of the country.

We spent that first night in a hotel and had dinner at Trattoria del Rosso. I had eaten in some fine restaurants in Siracusa, but nothing compared to this. I had never had pasta Bolognese, nor anything like the veal chop my dad ordered. I was impressed. He ordered a great red wine to complement the meal, and all I could think about was how I was going to eat for the next eight months. I certainly had no intentions, as a student, of dining like this. The $15,000 in the bank would not last long.

My father's insight kicked in. He said, Giancarlo, you will find the food in the university dining rooms, where you will be eating most of your meals, is almost as good as this. Soon you will meet a nice girl, and on occasion, it will be all right if you meet someone special to bring her here for dinner. I laughed since we never talked about the opposite sex, although he was aware of my feelings for Francesca, the daughter of his closest friend, Dr. Matranga. She and I were good friends. While there was no serious romance, we would sneak away at parties my parents would have and walk in the garden. I tried to kiss her at the one my parents threw for my graduation, but she rejected it, and I apologized.

I could not help but think about my mother. She was a striking beauty. The pictures of her youth made it easy to understand my father's attraction for her. He was a handsome man and very bright. He graduated from the Sorbonne at the top of his class; he had a certain elegance that can only be achieved through the way he was raised. Very aristocrat parents in Lucca had groomed him in the villa that was passed down to our family, beginning in the seventeenth century.

It was currently occupied by my uncle, Giuseppe, who operated the family's lucrative olive oil business, which was started by my great-great-grandfather Giancarlo, my namesake, in the nineteenth century.

The next day, we went to the apartment, and I wrote my first check for eight months of rent, $800, and I moved in. My father helped me unpack, and afterward we went to lunch, and he showed me the highlights of Bologna for the rest of the afternoon. We had a casual dinner that night, and he departed for Rome the following day. I was on my own and lonely, wondering about the future, but confident of my survival in this next chapter of life.

I had trouble falling asleep. My thoughts drifted to the next two years and my wanderlust to travel the great cities of the world that I studied in my geography classes.

I met my homeroom professor the first day of school; and we reviewed my subjects, Italian history, advanced math, economics, and French. My mother insisted I study French. Her name was Maria Devereaux, and she was from Provence. She had met my father while they were students at the Sorbonne. My father, Giampiero, was doing his postgraduate work, and she was in her first year. They married the year she graduated in 1892 and had a great romantic life before I arrived in 1900. They had traveled the world. The photographs of their travels further ignited my desire to travel.

The following Monday, I had my first classes. French was the last class of the day.

My teacher was a female professor from Firenze, and her name was Victoria Grisanti. She was beautiful, and she had dark black hair and a very soft, sexy voice. I was attracted to her, and from the way she looked at me, I sensed she felt the same attraction. There were only three of us in the class, another young man from Greve and a young lady from Arrezzo.

Victoria asked our names and inquired about our background, and after she heard my responses, she said, What language are you speaking? I barely understood a word you said! You are speaking a dialect I have never encountered. It sounds more Greek than Italian. I want you to stay after class for a few minutes. We need to discuss your Italian.

I was embarrassed, so I refrained from saying I had a similar problem understanding her.

After the other two students left, she offered to tutor me in the late afternoons or early evenings to improve my Italian, which was the language spoken by people from Tuscany.

In early October, our Italian classes moved to her apartment and my awkwardness of being alone with a woman ceased. Romantic thoughts had surfaced, but I stifled them. Little did I know, she was having them too. It was difficult trying to stay focused on her efforts to improve my Italian.

I remembered my father's suggestion about someday bringing a nice girl to Trattoria del Rosso, and I invited her to dine there. I used the excuse that she had spent almost a month of her late afternoons and many evenings teaching me Italian.

She agreed, and I tried to duplicate the meal my dad and I shared, including the vino.

We went for a short walk back to her apartment. She invited me in for an espresso, and before I could begin my planned approach to express my desires, I was in her arms and spent the night.

Our romance lasted the entire school year. She continued to tutor me in Italian. We were together almost every night. I was in awe of her but could never voice it, although she confessed on more than one occasion she loved me.

Victoria, I love being with you. But please try to understand, at this time in my life, my education is driving me. I need to complete it and return to Sicily. I love my family and the friends I have there. I want to travel and see the world, so can we please take our life one day at a time and not take it too seriously?

Giancarlo, I agree. We both have our lives ahead of us. I'm sorry. The last thing I want is for you to be uncomfortable, but I can't help that I have fallen in love with you. I promise not to say it again.

No, Victoria. Please don't feel ashamed of expressing your feelings. I am flattered. No woman has ever said so many warm things to me. You have altered my ego. I will continue to respect you and your feelings, so please, let's just enjoy our relationship one day at a time. I reached out and gave her a warm, extended embrace.

All I could think about was the age difference. Victoria was twenty-six, and my calculating mind was in the future. There was a wide-open world out there, and I wanted to see it. Bologna was the first stop on the list of great cities I longed to visit—Venice, Firenze, Milano, Paris, London, New York, San Francisco along with some in South America and Spain.

There was no way I was going to stop here and enter into a serious long-term relationship with her. I was not about to lead Victoria on though, and made it clear where my feelings were, thus giving her the option to end the relationship, but she made it clear she had no intention of ending it. I was happy with her choice. I did not want it to end. We had gone beyond lovers. We were good friends, but soon after the discussion, we began to drift apart. We only saw each other on occasion. By the end of the school year, we mutually agreed to go our separate ways and remain friends.

My mind was preoccupied with my studies, the stock market, and the status of events that had been happening in Italy. Problems were brewing over the unrest between the north and south. The country was very divided.

My economics class quickly became my favorite. The most impressive part was the stock markets, especially those of the United States. The stories of people becoming rich after beginning with little money intrigued me. I went to the library and took out two books and began studying the market, specifically in America. My studies centered on the great industrialists and their rise to riches and the lifestyle the money allowed them to live.

I elected to stay in Bologna for the summer, and at the end of the school year, I ventured into a brokerage house and inquired about possibly buying some American stocks. At the time, stocks could be purchased with 10 percent down, and the balance could be financed. Mr. Balanca, the broker, asked my age and my employment, and when he heard I was nineteen and had no job, he refused any further discussion. I pursued his refusal by saying I had $2,000 to invest and would not need any credit.

He was astounded I had that kind of money and changed his tune. He was also impressed with my knowledge of the market, and I selected two stocks, Bank of New York and Standard Oil of New Jersey. He prepared the documents for me and congratulated me. I felt like I just paved the road to my independence from my family rule over me and was on my way to the lifestyle of the rich and famous.

I would visit the brokerage house almost daily to see how my stocks were doing and was amazed at how fast they were rising in value.

I was not happy with Mr. Balanca. Something was bothering me about him. He made me uncomfortable, and I did not trust him. There was no way I was going to continue doing business with his firm.

While the market was benefitting me, I decided to take a job in the school dining room three days a week, hoping to recoup the $2,000 I invested, plus I got a free meal. And one day, I was shocked to see Victoria walk in with a professor I recognized!

She was more shocked than me. We exchanged greetings, and she whispered she would like to see me, but I decided against it.

The summer was quickly ending, and I decided to take a quick trip to Firenze. Victoria had told me about the things to do and see, and I went for an extended weekend. I visited the duomo (cathedral) and the Uffizi Museum. I was most impressed with Michelangelo's David and walked the city, blessed with great weather. It fed my never-ending quest to travel the many cities surrounding Bologna.

That trip concluded what I felt was a very successful first year continuing my education in schooling and life.

My goal, when school resumed, was to find a new brokerage house with a broker that I could trust and move my current holdings to a new location.

Giancarlo Giambrone 1918 graduation, secondary school

Giancarlo, confirmation with his Godfather Dr. Matranga, 1907

Giancarlo standing as Godfather to Salvatore Matranga, 1917

Chapter 2

Year Two in Bologna

1919

Imet Pietro DeLucca from Lucca in my English class. His father was an investment banker. Next to the stock market, banking was the other interesting subject I wanted to study. He was great looking, with a head of blond hair, and he dressed well. Slightly taller than me, he possessed a warm personality and we communicated well. I was eternally grateful to Victoria for improving my Italian. I had no problem with my newly acquired dialect.

I was in the dining hall one day after school had resumed and found Pietro sitting at a table with two other classmates. They invited me to join them, and I listened to their discussion. They were speaking authoritatively about the US stock market. I listened and did very little talking, knowing little of the stocks they were reviewing. I went to the library and found a book on the history of the market. I read quite a lot before my next class and returned to the library every day that week to finish. The next day, I purchased two books, one on investing and the other about a man named Jesse Livermore, the most prolific stock analyst in America.

I began searching for Pietro and his friends every day in the dining hall and joined them on occasion. They were investing in the market, and I picked their brains on the stocks they were buying and made a list of them and began studying the companies.

Pietro worked with a stockbroker, and he graciously made an introduction.

I received a firm lecture from the broker. Unless you are prepared to lose your investment, stay out of the market.

I kept my secret and refrained from discussing my two stocks. My father had given me the equivalent of $20,000 for the coming year, which I added to the remaining $2,000 in my bank account. I decided to risk another $4,000. The broker said I could buy $40,000 worth of stocks using credit. He suggested Coca-Cola, Prudential Insurance, General Motors, and Paramount Pictures. I opted for all of them.

There was a lot of political chaos after the unification of Italy in 1861. The north and south were still somewhat divided. World War I did not help. The people in the north looked down on those in the south, much the same as the United States after the Civil War.

Benito Mussolini, who had served in the war, was a journalist politician. He formed a fascist group of followers, later named the National Fascist Party. They were socialists and his rise to power was meteoric. He had a vision of making Italy a world power. He later became the youngest prime minister in the history of Italy. His pet peeve was that Italy's twenty different dialects sounded like twenty different languages. After he was elected, he established the language of Dante for all of Italy and Sicily, insisting it be taught in school. Next he passed laws on education. Children had to attend school until they were sixteen. The new law prohibited hiring them before reaching that age.

He took on the train system and had new train cars and locomotives replace the antiquated ones in use and instituted strategies to ensure they arrived and departed on time. The train depots were a mess. They were old and in decrepit condition, and he renovated or constructed new ones. This was a boon to the economy.

Because he instituted socialism, education was free. It was a new day in Italy, and all of this had a significant impact on lower-class people.

Ultimately, Mussolini's dictatorial behavior, along with aligning with Adolf Hitler in 1939, was his downfall. In the annals of world history, he gets serious negative marks that overshadow the good he did in his early years.

My father and I exchanged many letters about Mussolini, and while I loved and respected Dad, I somewhat disagreed with his opinion about our new leader. My father cited many negative examples of socialism and its role in the downfall of some of the great empires of history. He was especially critical of the Bolsheviks in Russia. There were many discussions with Pietro and my new friends wherein a divide surfaced. I understood the problems of the poor in Italy and Sicily. There were only two classes of people, the rich and the impoverished, and the lower class had no chance of acquiring an education or elevating themselves to a higher class. Because of that, I favored some of Mussolini's attempts to raise the standard of living for the country. There were some heated discussions among Pietro and his friends and he agreed with me most of the time.

Putting politics aside, I noticed a lovely lady from Verona in my accounting class. Her name was Lidia Provenzano. My initial meeting with her was nothing special. She sat across from me in class. But as the semester progressed, I learned to respect her replies to the professor's questions. She was tall with an infectious laugh and had a great profile and a lovely figure. Unlike most Italian girls at the