For 'baby billionaire' Ernesto Bertarelli Cup racing is stressful fun

Ernesto Bertarelli

Before the current round of the Louis Vuitton Cup began, great emphasis was placed on the so-called “Billionaires’ Club”, the group of super-wealthy team owners whose presence in the event recalled an earlier era of the America’s Cup. At 37, Ernesto Bertarelli of Switzerland is the club’s youngest member, which has earned him the occasional nickname of “Baby Billionaire”. Yet, of all of them, Bertarelli survives as the only one still racing every day as a member of the crew.

Two other members of the club also raced on board their yachts, but shipping magnate Vincenzo Onorato saw his fledgling Mascalzone Latino team bow out early, while software mogul Larry Ellison demanded a crew shake-up on his Oracle BMW Racing team – and lost his regular place on board in the process. “I am enjoying it. I am pleased with my performance and the performance of the team,” Bertarelli said today, although he also confessed: “I am finding it more stressful than I was hoping for.”

The scion of a pharmaceuticals family, Bertarelli has a long association with sailing. As a young boy he hung posters of the America’s Cup in his bedroom and dreamed of competing in the historic contest one day. That day came when he founded the Alinghi Challenge and, with the assistance of former Team New Zealand members Russell Coutts and Brad Butterworth, built a Swiss America’s Cup team.

Bertarelli races on board every day as navigator and clearly relishes the whole experience. “I am enjoying it,” he said. “I wouldn’t do it otherwise – it is expensive enough. There are other things to do.”

The “Billionaires’ Club”, or the Bees, as Dennis Conner calls them, has inevitably drawn a lot of fascination in this event. Apart from Ellison, Onorato and Alinghi’s Bertarelli, other members of the exclusive group include Patrizio Bertelli, head of the Prada fashion empire and the Italian team of the same name, telecommunications king Craig McCaw and Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen of the OneWorld team, and Jan Stenbeck, the media magnate sometimes referred to as Europe’s Rupert Murdoch, who founded the Swedish Victory Challenge group. Stenbeck died in Paris on the day the Swedish team launched their second yacht, Orm and tragically missed out on seeing his team go into battle in Auckland.

Also listed as members of the club are Peter Harrison -- not quite in the same financial league but the man who brought Britain back to the America’s Cup scene after an absence of 15 years -- and German software billionaire Dr Hasso Plattner, whose SAP company is a major backer of Team New Zealand.

By definition, all of them are gripped by the America’s Cup obsession that has inspired a rich cast of suitors down the centuries to invest huge amounts of energy and money in its quest. Drawn by the challenge of winning one of sport’s most elusive trophies, they bring passion, style, aggression, and often no small amount of controversy, to the event. Some play very active roles in the day to day running of their teams, others take more of a hands-off approach. Some, like Peter Harrison in particular, love to occupy the 17th man position at the back of the boat. And, some like to be right in the heart of the action as members of the crew.

Onorato, for example, was a member of the Mascalzone Latino afterguard, although he reluctantly ceded the helming duties largely to Paolo Cian. Larry Ellison declared an early determination to helm Oracle BMW Racing and did so on a couple of occasions in the early rounds, stepping up to the wheel from his regular place in the afterguard. But, when USA-76 started to falter, Ellison recalled Chris Dickson from enforced retirement, gave him the skipper’s job and with it carte blanche to organize the sailing programme as he saw fit.

Vincenzo Onorato

Ellison appeared to be an early victim of this decision, as Dickson dispensed with his crewing services. But Dickson said Ellison would definitely be back on board in future. Describing Ellison as the strongest part of the team, Dickson said: “He is a very intelligent guy. He is one of the world’s most successful businessmen and yacht racing is not all that different from business. It is about decision making.”

He said he consulted with Ellison morning and night and revealed that Ellison had helmed USA-71 in the warm-up session with USA-76 today. But Ellison’s predicament makes Bertarelli the sole member of a club within a club, as the only owner still actively racing on a day to day basis. He said there was a nice cohesion on board Alinghi, which swept to the top of the leaderboard in the double round robins and is currently leading Prada 3-0 in the quarter-finals. Conceding he was “a little more than just a crew member”, he added: “I have been very lucky that the management of the team is very strong with Russell and Michelle (Bonnefous). I haven’t had to do very much. I am laid back and I enjoy the ride. “I get told off when I make mistakes and I am pleased when I do something right.”

Bertarelli said Alinghi’s success so far was big news back in Switzerland, where a number of teams are enjoying good results. Solo yachtsman Bernard Stamm has just won the first two legs of the Around Alone race, another solo campaigner and a friend of Bertarelli’s, Steve Ravussin, is leading the storm-ravaged Route du Rhum transatlantic race and the football team, FC Bâle, scored a huge upset win over Liverpool. “It is very nice for the country,” said Bertarelli.

With an MBA from Harvard University, Bertarelli has been the Chief Executive Officer and the Chairman of the Executive Committee of the pharmaceuticals giant Serono SA since 1996. He became Vice Chairman of the Board of Directors in 1991. He started his career with Serono in 1985 and held several positions in sales and marketing.

Prior to his appointment as CEO, he served for five years as Deputy CEO. Mr. Bertarelli was born on 22 September 1965. Asked how he split his time between spearheading an America’s Cup campaign and a global business, Bertarelli said it was a matter of delegation. “My management is about delegation and it’s proving to be working, both here in the Cup and in business,” he said. “I have a team back home who’ve been working with me for almost 10 years and they are very senior. They know exactly what to do, so I don’t need to interfere too much with what’s going on in the business.

“Also, pharmaceuticals is a business that moves fairly slowly – it takes10 years to bring a product to market. So we have time to see things coming and there’s not much I can add on a daily basis. We have a clear strategy to go forward and we’ve done great deals in the past few months -- we just signed one a couple of days ago. The company is in good shape and that gives me the opportunity to spend a bit more time here and enjoy the sailing.”