Excessive leverage is one of the most important problems facing Italian agricultural cooperatives as the competition in the EU intensifies. An empirical study of 500 agricultural cooperatives supports the hypothesis that cooperatives characterized as having "powerful managers" have a capital structure that is significantly different from the "nonpowerful manager" cooperatives. Powerful manager cooperatives were less leveraged and had a long term strategy that focused on minimizing financial risk by increasing their equity/asset ratio. The result of this strategy is an increased probability of long term international competitiveness.