Robert Agostinelli

Robert Francesco Agostinelli (born 21 May 1953), also known as Roberto Agostinelli, is a billionaire financier who runs the private equity firm Rhone Group with his partner Steven Langman. He holds extremely right-wing views and has supported Zionist and neoconservative causes. He is one of the Founder Members of the Friends of Israel Initiative. of The Friends of Israel Initiative > About > Founder Members <http://www.friendsofisraelinitiative.org/about-advisors.php> created 15 July 2010.
==Education and career==
Agostinelli was awarded a BA from St. John Fisher College in 1976 and an MBA from Columbia University in 1981. From 1981-1982 he worked for the wealthy financier Jacob Rothschild who had recently broken off from the Rothschild family bank. The Complete Marquis Who's Who (R) Biographies, ‘Robert Francesco Agostinelli’, 13 January 2010 [Accessed 15 July 2010 via Lexis Nexis] He then joined Goldman Sachs where he worked for five years in Mergers and Acquisitions. He was Senior Managing Director of investment banking at Lazard Frères in New York from 1987 to 1996. The Complete Marquis Who's Who (R) Biographies, ‘Robert Francesco Agostinelli’, 13 January 2010 [Accessed 15 July 2010 via Lexis Nexis] At Lazard Frères he worked with Steven Langman with whom he established Rhone Group in 1997. of The Friends of Israel Initiative > About > Founder Members <http://www.friendsofisraelinitiative.org/about-advisors.php> created 15 July 2010.
==Connections to right-wing politicians==
Under pressure from the French media, Nicolas Sarkozy admitted to Le Monde in 2007 that Agostinelli had paid the rent on a luxury villa for him during his controversial 2006 holiday to the United States. Part of the rent was also paid by Agnes Cromback, president of the jewellers Tiffany-France. ‘Sarkozy reveals US holiday hosts’, BBC News Online, 18 August 2007. A man convicted of attacking an associate of Agostinelli’s in a bar fight has claimed that Agostinelli used his connections with Sarkozy against him. Lawyers for John Augustin Washington, who was sentenced to 15 years in prison for the assault, played a phone message Agostinelli left him at an appeal saying: ‘Dear John, I want you to remember my name because you are going to remember it all your life! … the hunting dogs are after you … they will transform your life into a puff of smoke!’ ‘Beaned banker case twist’, New York Post, 29 December 2009.
In 2008 Agostinelli provided funding to the Presidential Campaigns of John McCain and Rudy Giuliani. Tony Barrett, ‘Rhône Group should not expect a warm welcome at Anfield’, Times Online, 16 March 2010.
==Views==
Agostinelli has described himself as ‘a committed classical liberal’ but he holds extreme right-wing views on economics and social issues. He claimed in a letter to the Wall Street Journal that the UK was ‘under attack from within’ by ‘Islamofascists who have been accommodated here for so long are home-grown and empowered in the belief that Britain is preordained to be a western caliphate.’ ‘Letters: Cameron Can't and Won't Save Britain’, Wall Street Journal, 26 May 2010. Similarly in a letter to the neoconservative magazine Commentary, he referred to the ‘social chaos’ caused by ‘a growing wave of immigration, dominated by North African Muslim youths who have failed to integrate into mainstream society.’ Robert F. Agostinelli, ‘Reader Letters’, Commentary, September 2007.
He has praised right-wing politicians like Silvio Berlusconi and Nicolas Sarkozy Tony Barrett, ‘Rhône Group should not expect a warm welcome at Anfield’, Times Online, 16 March 2010. but has been highly critical of some right-wing figures he regards as too liberal. He has called David Cameron and George Osborne ‘weak [and] illiberal in their values’ ‘Letters: Cameron Can't and Won't Save Britain’, Wall Street Journal, 26 May 2010. and dismissed the former a ‘feeble nature[d]… pretend-Tory prime minister’. ‘Letters: Cameron's defense cuts weaken Britain’, The Washington Times, 6 July 2010.
Agostinelli blames the post-2007 financial crisis not on financiers (like himself) but on ‘incompetent and costly government intrusion,’ reminiscent of when, ‘the Left ran roughshod over our liberties in the 1970s’. ‘Letters: Cameron Can't and Won't Save Britain’, Wall Street Journal, 26 May 2010. He considers Barak Obama to be an agent of Marxists who have ‘finally stuck the raw edge of their poisoned sword into the heart of the glorious genie of capitalism and freedom.’ He has referred to Obama as a ‘soulless serpent from the deep’. Robert F. Agostinelli, ‘Letter: Behold the naked hand of socialism’, The Washington Times, 30 March 2010; p.2. He has referred to the left generally as ‘a cancer that needs to be eradicated’. Tony Barrett, ‘Rhône Group should not expect a warm welcome at Anfield’, Times Online, 16 March 2010.
==Notes==
Agostinelli, Robert
Agostinelli, Robert