Cannon Rescuer Faces Criminal Charges in Italy

Interpart, a Luxembourg company that agreed last week to help financially troubled Cannon Group, disclosed Monday that a key officer has been accused of criminal wrongdoing in financial dealings in his native Italy.

Giancarlo Parretti, the Interpart first vice president who last week joined Cannon as a corporate officer and director, is “presently subject to a criminal proceeding pending in Naples-Syracuse, Italy, in connection with an alleged misstatement of the balance sheets of Siracusa Calcio, a soccer team, and Il Diario, a newspaper,” according to a document filed at the Securities and Exchange Commission. Parretti has denied all guilt, according to the filing.

The same document disclosed that Interpart has purchased nearly 10.9% of Cannon’s shares on the open market since mid-May. Interpart said it paid $4.75 per share for 887,000 shares of the Los Angeles-based movie company from May 15 through June 5.

Cannon announced last week that its two top executives joined Interpart, Parretti and another European businessman to form a new Luxembourg company called Intercorporation S.A. to lend Cannon $10 million and devise a refinancing plan.

The two Cannon officials, Chairman Menahem Golan and President Yoram Globus, control 2.1 million Cannon shares or 25.2% of the common stock outstanding in the quarter ended Sept. 27, 1986 (the last quarterly report filed by the company).

According to Monday’s filing, Golan and Globus intend to contribute their shares and transfer ownership to Intercorporation. At present, the document said, the shares have been pledged as security for the $10-million loan.

Parretti, currently dwelling in Paris, could not be reached for comment. But his business associate, 32-year-old Frederic Scheer, said in a telephone interview that he and Parretti founded Interpart in 1983.

Privately owned Interpart has invested in hotels, real estate and insurance, Scheer said, but now intends to diversify in the communications field, with Cannon as its first such investment.

Although an Italian magazine reported last year that Parretti is a 40%-owner of Interpart who serves as a figurehead for Arab investors, Scheer said the report was unfounded. He confirmed that Parretti is a major investor in Interpart, but declined to say whether he personally owns Interpart shares. Scheer said most of the company’s significant investors live in Spain, Switzerland and Luxembourg.

Parretti was once a cabin steward on a trans-Atlantic ocean liner, a failed hotel keeper and an editor, according to a story published last year by Panorama, an Italian newsmagazine. Parretti’s arrest on the criminal charges occurred on Feb. 22, 1986, the magazine said. It could not be learned Monday when he was released or the terms of his bail.

Earlier this year, Interpart acquired an Arlington, Va.-based motel company called Imperial Hotels Corp. for about $28 million, according to Dennis Fitzgerald, a 22-year employee who serves as vice president and general manager of the hotel chain. The company operates 60 economy lodges across the nation--including 12 in California--under the names Imperial 400 Motor Inns or Imperial Inn, Fitzgerald said.

Since January, Scheer has served as Imperial Hotels chairman, president and chief executive. Scheer, a French citizen who like Parretti has been named a senior executive vice president and director of finance for Cannon, said he intends to move to Los Angeles in June or July.