Benettons Scrutinized After Italian Bridge Collapse

Investigators are still trying to determine the cause of the bridge’s failure, but the Benettons have been criticized over the past three weeks by politicians and on social media.

Luigi Di Maio, leader of the 5 Star Movement, the largest party in parliament, called the Benettons “shameful” for their almost complete silence since the tragedy.

“I wouldn’t let people with this lack of humanity manage this chair, let’s not even talk about the highways on which Italians travel,” Mr. Di Maio said.

The website of 5 Star founder Beppe Grillo has a post titled “The Map of the Benetton’s Power,” which shows the connections between the Italian political and financial establishment and several of the companies controlled by the Benettons.

Gilberto Benetton, who runs the family investment vehicle and is on Atlantia’s board, on Thursday became the first family member to speak publicly about the issue. In an interview published in Italian daily Corriere della Sera he expressed condolences to the injured and families of the deceased.

“Where we’re from silence is considered a sign of respect,” said Mr. Benetton.

He said a press release two days after the tragedy from the family holding company Edizione had been sufficient. That release offered condolences, said the family would do everything possible to help the truth emerge and noted that Autostrade had invested more than €10 billion ($11.6 billion) in Italy’s highway network over the past decade.

The family declined to comment further.

Politicians are heaping blame not only on the Benettons but also Autostrade, which they allege is guilty of slack maintenance that allowed the bridge to deteriorate. The company has apologized for the incident, but says it did nothing wrong.

Leading members of Italy’s government, a coalition between the antiestablishment 5 Star and the nationalist League, have said Autostrade should be stripped of the license that lets it manage the highways. Mr. Di Maio has called for the highways to be nationalized. Autostrade says its contract guarantees it billions of euros in damages if the license is canceled before it runs out in 2042. Government officials said the company’s negligence nullifies the need for any compensation to be paid.

For the Benettons, damaged is their reputation of being above the political fray but interested in advancing social causes. A far-right political party without any members of parliament has called for a boycott of Benetton, and the family has been targeted on social media with many users pledging never to buy the brand’s products again.

“The Benettons have for years represented the progressive political left in Italy, but now this new government has managed to brand them as that type of left that has lost contact with people’s real needs,” said Giovanni Favero, a professor in the management department at Ca’ Foscari University in Venice who wrote a book on the rise of the Benetton dynasty.

Also weighing on the public’s opinion is the Benettons’ rising fortune, which has ballooned since the 1990s following a pivot away from their clothing line to the highly profitable business of running freeways, where critics say both maintenance and government oversight have been lax.

Last year, Atlantia paid almost €300 million in dividends to the Benettons, pushing their haul over the past four years to more than €1 billion. The payouts, which are the family’s main source of income, could face political pressure following the bridge collapse. Mr. Di Maio and other politicians have said Autostrade should have spent more on maintenance and less on dividends, which go to Atlantia and then on to Atlantia shareholders, including the Benettons.

The Atlantia stake accounted for half of the family’s €12 billion in assets—until the bridge disaster sent Atlantia shares plunging by almost a third, wiping €1.9 billion from the Benettons’ wealth.

“It’s unlikely the [license] will be revoked, but the possibility adds to the uncertainty and will keep Atlantia’s share price suppressed,” said Matteo Radaelli, an analyst at Swiss-based independent research firm Hammer Partners.

The financial impact on Atlantia and its ability to continuing paying dividends will depend on what happens with the license and what penalty, if any, the government is forced to pay should it happen, Mr. Radaelli said.

Atlantia declined to comment on how the bridge collapse might affect the company’s dividend policy.

Before the Genoa tragedy, the combined stakes of the three Benetton siblings—ages 83, 81 and 77—and their recently deceased brother put the family in third place on Forbes’ list of Italian billionaires, behind the owners of Nutella and the Luxottica eyeglasses empire.

Luciano Benetton, now 83, founded the company in 1965, expanding a business that started with him selling wool sweaters made by his sister Giuliana. Their younger brothers Gilberto and Carlo, who died this year, also worked for the company.

“They are truly self-made,” Mr. Favero said.

The family had grown used to letting the Benetton brand’s brash clothing advertisements do their talking. Sometimes those ads led to controversy, including calls for boycotts of the brand in the U.S. after a series of advertisements that some saw as overly sympathetic to death-row inmates. The company also riled the Catholic Church in the early 1990s with an advertisement showing a nun kissing a priest. But the family itself rarely faced flak.

In Italy, the holder of the highway license must carry out maintenance while the transport ministry is responsible for oversight. Engineers say the most likely culprit for the bridge’s collapse is the deterioration of the stay cables holding up the deck. Studies, emails and reports have emerged in Italian media showing that officials from Autostrade, as well as the government, were aware the bridge had serious structural issues.

Write to Eric Sylvers at eric.sylvers@wsj.com