Italy’ s Pesenti family is like Sweden’s Wallenberg family, owner of significant stakes in big industrial companies such as ABB and Saab as well as owners of EQT, one of the most active mid-market private equity firms in Europe. The comparrison has been made yesterday by Bloomberg, in an article after a long chat with Carlo Pesenti, ceo of Italmobiliare, who has just signed the agreement to buy 100% of the makor Italian private equity firm Clessidra sgr (see here a previous post by BeBeez).
“Pesenti’s strategy is to turn Italmobiliare into a family holding company similar to Investor AB, which the Wallenbergs have had in place in Sweden since 1916”, Bloomberg writes, adding that in these days Pesenti is traveling to London to seek approval from the majority of investors in Clessidra’s Capital Partner III fund, a requirement to close the purchase.
Pesenti plans to re-open Capital Partner III and boost its funds to 800 million euros from 500 million. He will invest up to 100 million euros, Bloomberg adds.
As for the management team, Mr. Pesenti may take the chairman position at Clessidra and might appoint a new ceo in the place of actual ceo Maurizio Bottinelli, while actual chairman Francesco Trapani could keep an advisory role at the company. Some days ago Il Sole 24 Ore are ported rumors about a possibile exit of Mr. Trapani and Mr. Bottinelli from Clessidra’s management team and the appoitment of Pietro Alonzo ad vice chairman for in agreement with Italmobiliare.
