Elite

ELITE
A project by the London Stock Exchange Group and the Italian Stock Exchange that believes in Berto's

In the article that goes alongside this in issue 9 of our newsletter, dedicated to the star chef Antonino Cannavacciuolo’s project "La Scelta", we spoke at length about the concept of entrepreneurship. The fact that the worlds of haute cuisine and professional catering are intertwined with extreme professionalism, optimal balance sheet management, competitive financial profiling and scrupulous quality management has been evident for some time now, and companies that operate in the world, at the highest levels in the industry, are now considered, to all intents and purposes, as players in the world economic landscape. Evidently this was also noticed by the London Stock Exchange Group, an international holding company established in 2007 by the merger between the London Stock Exchange and the Italian Stock Exchange (the LSEG also owns the  FTSE Group, MillenniumIT and Russell Investments). Through the ELITE project, this holding company selects companies in Europe (and from this year also beyond the boundaries of the old continent) that have distinguished themselves for entrepreneurial virtuosity in order to accelerate growth, increase visibility and reward excellence. On April 27th of this year, LSEG organised two simultaneous events in the cities of London and Milan to officially present the new 2016 entries in the exclusive ELITE project: 16 British and 30 Italian companies, selected mainly from the Food & Beverage, media, software houses and lifestyle industries. With these 46 new entries, the ELITE community has now reached 389 units, a set of companies that corresponds to 130,000 jobs in Europe alone and to an annual revenue of more than 32 billion Euros.
But how exactly are the companies that enter ELITE chosen? The criteria are strict and ironclad: they are companies that must be characterised by economic management policies inspired by accountability and maximum transparency; companies that have been in the target market for years and are strongly oriented towards export and international markets; companies with proven healthy and strong balance sheets; companies eager to grow starting from solid bases of business excellence and quality management. The ELITE project offers the selected industrial companies a three-year programme – regularly interspersed with verifications, check-ups and strict progress controls - which is based on training, interaction, community, sharing and international showcasing. It should be noted that the criteria (first for selection and then for the training programme) used by the London Stock Exchange Group are based on economic and industrial assessments, not financial, in order to emphasise the strictly entrepreneurial vocation of the project.
At the end of the 2016-2019 triennium, the promoter will award the companies with certification, which will have the value of a certificate for economic and industrial management virtuosity, a training qualification and aptitude for stock-exchange listing. Berto's is one of the companies selected by ELITE in Italy and was presented to the international press on 27 April 2016: an Italian company that operates throughout the world and approaches this new motivating entrepreneurial experience with the desire to know and be known, to learn and pass on their experience to the community at the same time, to be a group, to continue to challenge themselves, to evolve and grow.