Gualino was also involved in manufacturing and distributing cement, and during World War I (1914–18) built and operated cargo ships carrying goods such as coal from the United States to Europe.

[2] In 1896, at the age of 17, Gualino moved to Sestri Ponente where he found work in the company of Attilio Bagnara, who imported timber from Florida and was the husband of his sister Marta.

[2] In 1903 he moved to Casale Monferrato, where he worked as an independent sales representative for his cousin Tancredi Gurgo Salice, a cement trader.

[2] In 1907 Gualino married Gurgo Salice's daughter Cesarina, then aged seventeen, at the Addolorata church in Casale Monferrato.

The company obtained an additional concession in Romania the next year and began making large investments in sawmills, roads and other infrastructure.

[4] Gualino partnered with the Piaggio family to obtain a small fleet of sailing ships to transport the lumber via the Black Sea rather than by road.

He also bought the Cantiere lombardo (Lombard Shipyard), which became the Società nazionale legnami e materiali da costruzione (National Timber and Building Materials Company).

[3] He reentered the timber and building materials markets, invested in land in Rome, became involved in the manufacture of chemicals and moved into the coal trade, which was very profitable during the war.

They invested in two enterprises in the United States; the Marine & Commerce Corporation of America exported coal and the International Shipbuilding Company made motorized vessels.

[4] Gualino was a central figure among a group of intellectuals influenced by Piero Gobetti who had vague but inclusive views about European culture.

[6] In June 1922 Gualino moved back to Turin, where he became increasingly interested in modern ballet and decided to help diffuse this form of artistic expression in Italy.

In September 1922 his wife, Cesarina, organized a gym in the Castello di Cereseto and persuaded a group of Russian dancers to move to Turin, where they established a dance school and a theatre, the nucleus for a revival of modern ballet.

Concerts staged in the first year included works from the 18th and 20th centuries influenced by Wagnerism and romantic melodrama, a major departure from typical musical performances in Turin.

[13] Gualino and Venturi supported local painters such as Felice Casorati and the Gruppo di Sei (Group of Six), which included Carlo Levi, Francesco Menzio, Jessie Boswell, Gigi Chessa, Enrico Paolucci and Nicola Galante.

These artists could view works by Modigliani, considered pornographic at the time, that Gualino "hung serenely amidst his Titians and Botticellis.

[16] The building had seven identical low-stacked floors, and unorthodox but functionally rational horizontal windows, conveying a sense of efficiency rather than power.

[17] The Galleria Sabauda (Savoy Gallery) in Turin has a room dedicated to the Gualino collection, which includes Venus and Mars with Cupid and a Horse by Paolo Veronese and Landscape with a pushcart by Peter Paul Rubens.

[2] In 1921 Gualino acquired Rumianca, which made sodium hydroxide and carbon disulfide, used in the production of artificial fibres by SNIA Viscosa.

At the request of Agnelli, Bonaldo Stringher authorized the Banca d'Italia to provide financial help, but Gualino had to sell his stake in Fiat and scale back on his efforts to acquire Credito Italiano.

[3] Gualino and Agnelli were also involved in a proposal to link Milan, Genoa and Turin with a high-speed railway, and in various projects in cement and automobiles.

In 1924 he launched the confectionery company Unica (Unione Nazionale Industrie Cioccolato e Affini)[24] The boom period ended with the Quota 90 revaluation of the lira announced on August 18, 1926.

They find themselves with factories devalued because of revalued debts, with grandiose plants built and paid for while the pound sterling equaled 125 lire.

They must devalue their capital and reduce production without hope of later being able to retake lost ground since, in the meantime, foreign firms are occupying markets which the Italians had conquered with so much effort.

[31] After an appeal to Mussolini by his wife, Gualino was transferred from the Aeolian Islands to Cava de' Tirreni, where he spent about a month of probation.

It profited from public financing of Italian industry, and during World War II (1939–45) was involved in mineral refinement, chemical production, soap making, fungicides and a huge pyrite mining complex in Val d'Ossola.

By the mid-1930s he was engaged in French real estate with the Société anonyme des cafés et restaurants français and in retail with Le Bon Marché.

His friend Oustric was active in the Banque de l'Union Parisienne, which supported Gualino in various business ventures in France, Belgium, Romania, Switzerland and Yugoslavia.

[29] Lux also looked after distribution and exhibition and targeted international markets with agencies in the United States and different parts of Europe, South America and the Middle East.

[34] Lux produced many successful neo-realist works directed by filmmakers such as Pietro Germi, Alberto Lattuada and Mario Soldati.

[3] Lux producers in the early 1950s included Carlo Ponti and Dino De Laurentiis, who later branched out on their own, Antonio Mambretti, Luigi Rovere and Valentino Brosio.