Change at the top of Adriafer, the company wholly owned by the Eastern Adriatic Sea Port System Authority that manages railway shunting in the ports of Trieste and Monfalcone. As reported by Nordest Economia, the shareholders’ meeting has appointed Giovanni Gommellini as sole director, a Genoese manager coming from Tcr, the container terminal in Ravenna, ending the mandate of CEO Maurizio Cociancich, who will nevertheless retain the role of general manager.
The choice is part of the broader restructuring of the companies held by the Port Authority initiated by President Marco Consalvo and aims, on the one hand, to give new impetus to Adriafer after a decade of strong expansion and, on the other, to address the issue of the company’s financial consolidation. In the last ten years, Adriafer has in fact accompanied the growth of railway traffic in the port of Trieste, significantly increasing its business volume but also its long-term debt, now standing at around 20 million euros.
Consalvo ruled out any hypothesis of privatizing the company, reiterating that Adriafer will remain wholly owned by the Port System Authority. The objective, he explained, is to strengthen the management structure of a company considered strategic for the railway development of the Julian port. The president also underlined that the 2025 budget closed with a positive result and a turnover close to 30 million euros, approximately five times that of ten years ago.
Gommellini, selected through the public procedure launched in recent months by the Authority, will remain in office for one year, possibly renewable, as will Cociancich in the role of general manager. A graduate in Economics and Commerce from the University of Genoa, the new sole director boasts a long managerial career in the logistics, transport and industry sectors. After his beginnings at Deloitte & Touche, where he dealt with the auditing of companies of the Iri group and the certification of the Ilva group, he was chief financial officer of the Duferco group, CEO of Demag Plastic Group and general manager of Rivalta Terminal Europa, the intermodal hub of the Gavio group. He also led Savona’s public transport and carried out strategic consultancy assignments for Voltri Terminal Europa (now Psa Pra’), Captrain and, more recently, for Tcr, the container terminal of the port of Ravenna.
According to Nordest Economia, Adriafer represents only the first piece of the restructuring of the Port Authority’s subsidiaries. In recent weeks, the governance of Trieste Terminal Passeggeri has also been renewed, while in the coming weeks it should be the turn of the Local Economic Development Consortium of the Giuliana Area (Coselag).
