Italy’s private debt, distressed assets and NPLs weekly roundup. News from Moby, Aligros, Illimity, Scarpe&Scarpe, Axitea, SOREC, Credimi, BIP, MCC, Obton Group and more

MSC, the shipping company that belongs to Gianluigi Aponte, is acting as white knight for troubled competitor Moby (see here a previous post by BeBeez). Press reports say that MSC subscribed a capital increase of 80 million euros for acquiring a 25% of Moby and allowing the target to pay Tirrenia. Milan Court set 31 March, Thursday, as deadline for filing an agreement with Tirrenia, the main creditor of Moby’s CIN.  

Aligros, an Italian diversified group that belongs to the Montinari family, refinanced its liabilities (see here a previous post by BeBeez). Solution Bank, the Italian subsidiary of Hong Kong’s SC Lowy, provided facilities for 12.5 million suros, while AMCO poured 2.6 million. Such resources allowed the company to repay Prelios, Banca Popolare Pugliese, BNL BNP Paribas, and some credit line of AMCO. Such liabilities amount to 21 million. Aligros extended to 2035 the maturity of part of its debt, of its leasing contracts with MPS Leasing & Factoring and of a further 5 million loan that AMCO provided. Aligros has sales of 5.4 million, an ebitda of one million and a net financial debt of 28.8 million.  

Milan-listed illimity Bank finalized the announced acquisition of a 1.8 billion euros gross value portfolio of Public Procurement Claims (PPCs) from Apollo Global Management (see here a previous post by BeBeez). Apeiron Management, a firm that Alessandro Fracanzani leads, acted as exclusive advisor to Apollo. Sources said to BeBeez that the portfolio attracted the interest of Bain Capital Credit, Fortress and King Street. Illimity will start acquiring a portfolio of 546 million and later another worth more than 1.2 billion through a securitization vehicle of which Illimity itself will buy a senior tranche with Apollo.  

On 28 February, Monday, 87% of the creditors of Scarpe & Scarpe, a troubled Italian shoe retailer that is in receivership since June 2021, approved the company’s restructuring proposal (see here a previous post by BeBeez). All the Class 1 creditors (Italian Inland Revenue, Italian Custom and INPS – Pensions Systems) and 83% of Class 2 creditors (suppliers, banks and factoring firms) approved the company’s proposal. Scarpe&Scarpe has sales of 220 million euros.

In 2021, Clessidra Factoring, a subsidiary of Italmobiliare, focusing on special situation credit, generated a turnover of 250 million euros (see here a previous post by BeBeez). The company aims to double the revenues in 2022 and earlier in January launched a 3 million capital increase. Clessidra Factoring has a total capital ratio of 17.8% and a ROE of 9.2%. Earlier in September, the ceo Gabriele Piccini said to BeBeez that the firm issued facilities for 200 million, above the 160 million target. By the end of 2024, Clessidra Factoring aims to generate a turnover of 750 million. 

Axitea, a Stirling Square Capital portfolio company,  founded in 2011 from the integration of Sicurglobal and Mega Italia and then adding a series of small companies in the private security sector, has exited in advance its receveirship procedure. The company actually defined in advance the executive phase of the arrangement with creditors in business continuity as for an agreement licensed in November 2016 by the Court of Milan (see here a previous post by BeBeez). Axitea has sales of 75 million euros, an ebitda of 5.6 million and a net financial debt of 0.5 million.  

Norman Pepe, Fabrizio Occhipinti and Elena Cannazza, the partners of London-based Law Firm iLS, said that better fiscal incentives would give a strong boost to real estate securtizations that could be a powerful financing tool (see here a previous post by BeBeez). In 2020, iLS launched the securitization platform Bayview Italia. 

SOREC, an Italian servicer for the management of NPEs, acquired a portfolio of unsecured credits with a face value of 600 million euros on the secondary market (see here a previous post by BeBeez). Sorec carried on the transaction through the spv Dolomiti SPE which is currently managing a portfolio of NPEs with a face value of 1.5 billion. ì

 Credimi signed a financing agreement for issuing credit facilities for 150 million euros to SMEs through the Perseveranza securitization programme that started in 2021 with a partly-paid abs issuance of 200 million euros (see here a previous post by BeBeez). Banco BPM and Intesa Sanpaolo subscribed the senior notes of this tranche. The corporate loans issued through this programme worth a total of 350 million will have a mult-year tenure, with the first year of pre-amortisation and the repayment starting in 2023.  

Business Integration Partners (BIP), the Italian strategic consultancy firm that belongs to CVC since 2021, carried on a 70 million euros private placement tap for its Luxembourg-listed floating rate senior bond due to mature in 2028 (see here a previous post by BeBeez). Earlier in October, the company issued  275 million euros of the bond for financing the buyout of CVC from Apax France on the ground of an enterprise value of 720 millions.

Zintek, a producer of building materials of Cordifin, who belongs to the Cordioli family, issued a one million euro minibond due to mature on 31 December 2027 with a gross yield of 4.2% and warranty of up to 80% from SACE (See here a previous post by BeBeez). The company placed the issuance on crowdfunding portal Fundera, a platform of Frigiolini & Partners Merchant, and signed a call option for the earlier repayment and a reward for the investors.  Gianni Schiavon is the ceo of Zintek who will invest the raised proceeds in its organic growth and expansion in USA and China. Zintek has sales of 25.9 million, an ebitda of above 0.4 million and a net debt of 1.8 million.  

In 2021, Mediocredito Centrale (MCC) posted net profits of 86.5 million euros (+69% yoy – 51.3 million in 2020) (see here a previous post by BeBeez). A major boost to MCC’s results was originated by Fondo PMI, the credit warranty programme for SMEs of the Italian Ministry for Economic Development (MISE) that MCC is managing, that generated fees of 154 million (+43% – 107.6 million) for the bank. 

Obton Group, a Danish renewable energy company, carried on a 400 million euros worth refinancing of a 116 MW portfolio of brownfield photovoltaic plants with the support of Generali Global Infrastructure, BNL, Natixis CIB, and Unicredit (see here a previous post by BeBeez). Obton acquired the assets earlier in February from E2E, a company that belongs to Gianluca Lancellotti.  

Theia Investments (Italy) 3, a subsidiary of UK’s renewable energy company Theia Holdings, received a 32 million euros financing facility from BPER Banca (see here a previous post by BeBeez). The company will invest these proceeds in refinancing seven photovoltaic plants based in Italy with a power of 17 MW.