Take Maserati, the historic auto brand being revived by Fiat. Perricone ran the firm for several years and RCS Media has retained a shareholding in the group. Naturally, Perricone makes sure he sits on the board.

Or take Ducati, the motorbike stable. Perricone has guided RCS Media into a 23 percent investment in Ducati and has lured Valentino Rossi to ride for the team in the new season. And yes, Perricone is a director.

As if these aren’t enough high-speed assets for the 63-year old professional investor, he races triathlons and marathons on his own account. Having started running in order to lose weight back in 1981 while cutting his teeth in America on investment banking, he soon shed 20kg. Soon afterwards, he clocked a coveted sub-three hour marathon. He’s now competed for nearly 30 years under a training regime based on nine workouts a week, time and travel permitting.

“Training is the only true way to disconnect from my other life,” Perricone explains. But the challenge of competition is clearly a motive too. “I try and beat as many young people as possible and anybody in my age group,” he told Running World magazine.

Perricone’s decidedly non-sedentary attitude to business life seems to have made an impact on the group. While it’s not quite obligatory for staff at head office to spend lunchtime working out, a lot seem to do so. A number of colleagues join him on his regular swims and cycle rides while others are first-class skiers.

“I’m very lucky to work with a group of athletes, which is a rarity in Milan,” Perricone enthuses.

And you could say that RCS Media is in a hurry too. Listed on the Italian stock exchange as a blue chip, it’s a company in a process of rapid expansion. Today it operates in daily newspapers, magazines and books, radio broadcasting, new media, digital and satellite TV, not to mention the management of sports events.

A recent coup was a deal in late 2010 to deliver a wide array of on-the-go content to Telecom Italia via mobile phones and e-readers in what could turn out to be a game-breaker for the group in much the same way as was its purchase of daily newspaper Corriere della Sera in 1973. “I’m particularly pleased with this partnership,” Perricone says. “The future of editorial is moving inevitably towards a digital domain.”

Perricone has his hands full in other areas of the business. Like most other publishers, RCS Media has walked a rocky road during the recession, particularly because of the collapse of book sales in traditional outlets. After posting a loss last year, the group edged back into the black recently with a €10.6m profit for the July-September quarter on revenue of €548m. The gains are largely the result of Perricone’s “efficiency enhancement” programme that has already delivered €209m a year in savings. (However his efficiency drive hasn’t yet reached his media relations department which did not respond to email and phone messages.)

Aside from its high-speed ventures into cars and bikes, the group has built on its roots throughout its nearly 90 years. It’s grown from a Milan-based printing house founded by Angelo Rizzoli to a newspaper-owner by acquiring Milan’s Corriere della Sera group in 1974 (hence RCS), and finally to a media conglomerate bestriding Europe with major publishing interests in France, Spain, Portugal, Britain and America.

In Spain, for example, it owns through Unidad such prime assets as Marca, arguably the best daily sports paper in the world, business newspaper Expansion and centre-right newspaper El Mundo among other interests.

And yet the firm remains deeply Italian with a gilded cast of home-grown investors. There’s the Fiat investment fund controlled by chief executive Sergio Marchionne, the Pirelli group, the Benetton group and pillars of the banking community such as Banco Popolare. As well as these industrial investors, there’s an array of blue-chip families such as the Ligrestis, insurance giants, the Della Valle of Tod’s footwear fame, and Francesco Merloni, chairman of heating giant Ariston Thermo.

The group controls some of Italy’s most iconic sports events. Its RCS Sport, one of Perricone’s favourite divisions, organises the classic Giro d’Italia cycle race, whose pink jersey is nearly as famous as the yellow one of the Tour de France, and other regional cycling classics. Most of these have an historical connection with the group because, back in 1909, the newspaper Corriere della Sera launched the Giro d’Italia.

RCS Sport also manages the Milan marathon in which the boss is a participant. And for good measure its promotional arm controls the sponsorship rights of Italia’s national football team, an activity that wasn’t exactly a winner given the Azzuras  poor showing at the 2010 World Cup.

Although media interests occupy most of Perricone’s time, you can’t keep him away from the more rapid assets. Late last year, he was present at the unveiling of Ducati’s 2011 models when he talked about a possible re-listing of the famous brand after a strong performance when it defied a slump in the motorbike market.

“We are very happy [with Ducati],” he told reporters on the sidelines of the presentation. “It is an investment we believe in.” And why wouldn’t he, with Rossi astride the brand next season?