LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Ernesto Bertarelli: Swiss Alinghi
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Ernesto Bertarelli was a happy man last night — which makes a change. After watching Alinghi, the team he has bankrolled, level the 32nd America’s Cup at 2-2, the biotech billionaire said it was the holders’ best race. Even when Emirates Team New Zealand (ETNZ) lodged a protest over a technical violation of the rules, it failed to dampen his mood.
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Ernesto Bertarelli was still in his twenties and only a few years beyond a Harvard MBA when he was called upon, in 1996, to take the reins of Serono, the family-controlled business. Rather than merely continue down the profitable road of pharmaceuticals, he accelerated a shift to biotech and in six years doubled the revenue. Serono was founded in Rome, but the headquarters was moved to Switzerland in the 1970s, when Ernesto was a child. Today he holds Swiss citizenship and speaks fluent Swiss (as in French, Italian, English, Spanish, German, etcetera).
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If it sounds almost as difficult as bringing a profitable drug to market, maybe that’s why Ernesto Bertarelli (MBA ’93), CEO of the Swiss biotech company Serono International, was equal to the task. As the Financial Times (February 27, 2003) explained, “Mr. Bertarelli runs his America’s Cup team like a small global company, with over one hundred team members, drawn from fifteen countries, and eight specialist units covering everything from boat design and sail making to professional sponsorship and training.”
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Ernesto Bertarelli, the billionaire head of Alinghi, hoisted the silver trophy at the aircraft door. He was applauded by fans and a government delegation while the Red Hot Chili Peppers' "Can't Stop" played from loudspeakers.
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Bertarelli has referred the dispute with Ellison to an independent America’s Cup adjudication panel. “It seems like having failed to win on the water twice and barely finishing fifth in the last competition, Oracle Racing has decided to bring the dispute into court hoping to win what they were not able to do on the water,” Bertarelli said. “This is a great disappointment to Alinghi and a great disappointment to Société Nautique de Genève.” He said the suit is creating uncertainty, scaring off sponsors, and damaging the America’s Cup brand. “There’s one thing for sure,” he said of the lawsuit. “Everybody loses.”
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Bertarelli, the 64th-richest man in the world, is the proud new holder of yachting's ultimate prize. Ellison, sixth richest, lost his chance to challenge for the Cup to the Swiss biotech billionaire but still wants to get his hands on that silverware. And now they are working together.
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