family's financial holding company. Gabetti accepted and a year later he was managing director, a position that launched the long partnership with Fiat S.p.A., of which he would also be vice-chairman from November 1993 to June 1999. From 2003 to 2008, he was chairman of IFIL, and subsequently honourary president. His expertise in the financial and industrial fields, as well as his ethical and social commitment, which was aimed at improving the country's living and working conditions, made it possible for him to be appointed Knight of the Order of Merit for Labour in 1982. Along with Enrico Cuccia, Gabetti concluded the December 1976 agreement that led the Libyan Arab Foreign Investment (Lafico) to subscribe to a capital increase in Fiat. In September 1986, he repurchased through IFIL the 90-million Fiat ordinary shares from Lafico, with an outlay of about $1 billion, bringing the group's stake in Fiat ordinary capital to just under 40%. In the mid-1990s, Gabetti left Italy to devote himself to international investments through Exor, formerly Ifint, based in Geneva. After he retired for having reached the age limit, he returned to Turin in 1999 to help the now ill Agnelli, and dealt with the logistics relating to the treatments to be carried out in the country and abroad. Following the death of Agnelli and the appointment of his younger brother, Umberto Agnelli, as the new chairman of Fiat, Gabetti dealt with the subsequent reorganization of the automotive group, which took place in 2003, and the related capital increase involving GA, IFI, IFIL, and Fiat. In 2004, Gabetti became the backbone of the Agnelli family, occupying the role of chairman of the family companies. When it was proposed to him to become chairman of Fiat, he stepped aside and proposed the name of Luca Cordero di Montezemolo, while on the same day John Elkann, the older Agnelli's grandson, convinced Sergio Marchionne to become CEO of the Fiat group. Gabetti was also behind the joining of Marchionne, with whom he would start a close friendship. Nicknamed Agnelli's Richelieu, he was described as the man of the international and financial relations of the Lingotto and the Agnellis, as being always discreet and reserved, and a lover of music and art. In 2007, after the deaths of the Agnelli brothers, Gabetti worked along with Franzo Grande Stevens to ensure the succession of power to Elkann. He described Elkann as "a