After having spun-off its private quity activities (see here a previous post by BeBeez), IntesaSanpaolo is preparing to sell its venture capital activites as well, Corriere della Sera wrote last Wednesday Sept. 9th.
The Italian bank operates three venture capital funds (Atlante Ventures, Atlante Ventures Mezzogiorno and Atlante Seed) through its subsidiary Imi Fondi chiusi sgr.
The deal will be structured as a management buy out by the funds’ top managers led by the head of venture capital team Davide Turco. The MBO will be financed by fQuadrivio sgr, an Italian mid-market private equity firm.
Quadrivio is not quite a surprise as a partner in the deal as back in 2012 the private equity firm bought both Fondamenta sgr (a private equity funds asset manager who counted Intesa’s shareholder Fondazione Cariplo as one of its most active investors) and Futura Invest spa (an investment company controlled by Fondazione Cariplo).
As far as Quadrivio sgr’s venture capital activity is concerned, the company has been in fundraising for its TT Venture Due fund since last Spring targeting 100 million euros for the new fund (see here a previous post by BeBeez). The new vehicle will invest in startup companies with a specific focus on life science, medTech, new materials and cleantech sectors as previous TT Venture fund used to do. The previous TT Venture fund raised 64 million euros in 2008 thanks to committements from a number of Italian banking foundations (with Fondazione Cariplo among them).
Atlante Ventures and Atlante Ventures Mezzogiorno were launched in May 2009 both with 25 million euros of dry powder, all money that was committed by Imi Investimenti spa (the Intesa Sanpaolo’s investment company owning Imi Fondi Chiusi sgr) in the first case and both by Imi Investimenti spa and by the Italian Ministry of Innovation in the second case. The Atlante Seed fund eas instead launched in July 2011 with 10 million euros of dry powder.
It is still to be decided now what future expectes the private equity funds managed by Imi Fondi Chiusi sgr and that weren’t part of the deal signed by Intesa Sanpaolo and the US asset manager Neuberger Berman which referred instead to Intesa’s stakes in international private equity funds and Intesa’s direct private equity stakes in the capital of about 20 Italian companies.
Imi Fondi Chiusi sgr actually manages three local funds (Mezzogiorno, Centro Impresa and Nord Impresa) and one generalist fund (Atlante Private Equity, launched in 2010 with about 200 million euros of committements).
