The Bio-on That Lived Twice
This article was published in Italian in the Italian newspaper La Repubblica on 6 October 2025 (find original article at the bottom).
Translated by ChatGPT
The bioplastics company has restarted after its 2019 bankruptcy, when a report by Quintessential accused it of being an empty shell by Carlotta Scozzari
In the story of Bio-on, there is a new year marking a deep transformation: 2025, the year when the company was reborn from its ashes after its bankruptcy.
The other pivotal date in its history is July 24, 2019. On that day, a video by Gabriel Grego of the Quintessential Capital Management (QCM) fund caused the shares — and the dreams — of the “green plastic” company to collapse, accusing it of being an empty shell and comparing it to Parmalat.
Bio-on went bankrupt in December 2019, following a request by the court-appointed administrator, without ever convening a shareholders’ meeting for recapitalization and after the entire board of directors had been dismissed.
The case went to court, where the first-degree trial concluded last autumn.
Before July 24, 2019, the Bologna-based company had reached a market value of €1.3 billion, buoyed by numerous announcements of collaborations and partnerships, and by a highly appealing business model built around over 100 patents for PHA bioplastics, which are 100% naturally biodegradable.
Founded in 2007 by Marco Astorri and Guido Cicognani, Bio-on was listed on the AIM (now EGM) in 2014, initially selling licenses for the production of these bioplastics.
Later, the company decided to start producing them directly, and thus built a plant in Castel San Pietro Terme (Bologna), which became operational in the spring of 2019.
The facility became one of the main targets of QCM’s attack, which questioned its operations and criticized rising costs.
The fund, having declared from the outset “a financial interest in the movement of the stock price,” also raised doubts about the validity of Bio-on’s receivables and revenues (in the first half of 2019, Bio-on had announced revenues of €917,000, of which €767,000 were for third-party projects).
It is precisely from the Castel San Pietro Terme factory that this year the new Bio-on, now owned by Maip, was reborn. Maip is the Turin-based company of the Martini family, which bought Bio-on from the bankruptcy proceedings for €27 million, along with an additional €6 million investment.
Today, the plant has resumed operations after the shutdown imposed in 2019.
Astorri, who never abandoned his “creature,” now awaits the appeal with confidence, though the date has not yet been set.
Last November, the court dropped two charges against him — embezzlement and fraudulent recourse to credit — but convicted him in the first instance to five years and two months for market manipulation and false corporate communications.
Astorri and his lawyers are hopeful that even these charges will be overturned on appeal, aided by a recent decree from the Ministry of Economy and Finance (MEF) stating that, in cases of full transfer of economic rights, revenues from licenses and know-how sales should be fully recognized in the balance sheet immediately (as Bio-on had done and which was disputed in court), with this rule also valid for tax purposes.
Astorri has always believed in the strength of Bio-on’s business, which produced bioplastics so advanced that they attracted the interest of major competitors, including Novamont (now part of the Eni Group).
In December, the TV program “Report” revealed that some professionals linked to Novamont were also involved in Bio-on’s collapse.
On the very same day that the QCM video was released, Astorri said he had been about to sign an agreement to allocate 10% of the company to new investors through a €200 million capital increase, after UBS had valued the company at up to €2 billion.
Nothing came of it.
The recent attack by the Morpheus fund on Brunello Cucinelli brought Astorri’s mind back to the events of 2019:
“We need,” he says after expressing solidarity with entrepreneur Cucinelli, “to regulate activist funds by introducing transparency obligations regarding the securities covered by their analyses. To better protect the market and investors, there should also be a system of administrative sanctions — and perhaps even a specific criminal offense — for those who fail to declare or make false declarations.”
Novamont Answer
This article was published in Italian in the Italian newspaper La Repubblica on 13 October 2025 (find original article at the bottom).
Translated by ChatGPT
Regarding the article titled “The Bio-on That Lived Twice”, Novamont wishes to clarify that both the company and its management are completely unrelated to the events surrounding the bankruptcy of Bio-on.
Novamont has never been involved in any way in the related judicial proceedings.
The company considers unfounded and seriously damaging to its reputation the allegations made by the television program Report — against which Novamont has already taken legal action — and consequently repeated in the article, insofar as they undermine and discredit a virtuous body of work based on research, innovation, development, and major investments in industrial assets.
This work, Novamont emphasizes, aims to promote internationally the growth of the circular bioeconomy as a key instrument for environmental and climate transition.
For the sake of completeness and to protect its reputation, Novamont requests the publication of this clarification.
— Novamont Press Office
Editor’s note: The article did not refer to the company’s current management, but rather to professionals who, in the past, held official positions within Novamont or companies that were part of its former ownership structure.
— ca.sco.
Personal Remarks
Let’s look at the timeline:
- 6 October: Newspaper La Repubblica publishes the story of Bio-on and Marco Astorri.
- 13 October: Novamont forces the newspaper to publish their response.
- 17 October – bomb explosion against the home and car of journalist Sigfrido Ranucci who exposed the role of Novamont in the Bio-on conspiracy in the documentary ‘Report’ broadcasted on Rai.
More Context
ENI has been awarded the SLAPP bully award:
Novamont and ENI have been judged for unfair commercial practices In Italy:
- ENI is fined €336 million for Biofuel cartel
- Novamont & ENI have been fined €32M for Bioplastic cartel
European Bioplastics, Novamont and ENI were able to lobby Italian politician Vittorio Prodi (EP rapporteur for the EU SUPD) to ban British competing bioplastics technology … I believe that the EU SUPD had been created to get rid of OXO.
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