A weekly roundup on private equity funds’ activity in Italy starts today in this English section of BeBeez (this first post is about what happened between Jan 24th and Feb 1st). The release of similar roundups about the activity of private debt investors as well as of venture capital funds and business angels’ investments will take place on a weekly basis.
Two exits are on their way. The first story is about Alpha Private Equity who hired Rothschild to auction Savio Macchine Tessili. In 2011 the firm acquired 75% of the Italian producer of machinery for the textile industry from the Radici Family for an enterprise value of 300 million euros. Savio may attract the interest of trade buyers like Toyota, Rieter, Van De Wiele, Rifa and Chinese Jingway Textile Machinery. The company’s valuation is in the region of 500 million euros, or 9 times the ebitda of 2016 (see here a previous post by BeBeez).
A further exit involves Octo Telematics, a producer of surveillance systems for the car insurance industry that belongs to Russian investor Renova (65%), Pamplona (26.5%) and the management (5%). Advisors are working to list in May no less than 35% of the company on Milan Stock Market, and the EV may be of 1.1-1.2 billion euros or 8.5x Octo’s ebitda. Renova and Pamplona may cash at least 350 million euros (see here a previous post by BeBeez).
On the buy-side, two transactions of financial investors engaged public listed companies. On Monday January 29th, the shares of Safilo, the listed producer of luxury eyewear, moved up 8% after speculations about private equity firms’ interest in the company. Dutch sponsor Hal Holding could increase by a relevant amount its current 41% in the company, press items suggested. However, Hal released a statement and said it is not going to raise its stake in Safilo at the moment (see here a previous post by BeBeez).
Last January 24th HgCapital announced the results of its tender offer on Dada‘s shares at a 4 euro per share. Dada is an international leader in online presence and visibility services for SMEs. Shares for a total of 28.625% of Dada’s capital joined the tender offer that the investment vehicle Dali Italy Bidco launched. HgCapital now owns a 92.101% stake in Dada and will launch a residual tender offer on the remaining shares. Dali Italy Bidco had acquired a 69,432% stake in Dada’s capital at the end of last November from Orascom TMT Investments Sarl, a company that belongs to Egyptian entrepreneur Naguib Sawiris’ (see here a previous post by BeBeez).
Last week, the primary private market saw the announcement of three deals. The major of them involves Snaidero, the Italian kitchen manufacturer of the eponymous family that sold a stake to Idea CCRII fund, managed by Dea Capital Alternative Funds sgr. The firm signed an agreement with creditor banks to acquire 65% of the nominal value of Snaidero’s 25 million euros debt. Lenders included UniCredit, Mediocredito, MPS, Banco Bpmand Bnl BnpParibas. Idea CCRII will now be able to convert in equity its credit. Snaidero reportedly attracted the interest also of Country Garden, a Chinese real estate developer, that failed to table a bid when the fund missed the 21st of January deadline to make an offer (see here a previous post by BeBeez).
Private equity Consilium acquired a majority stake in River Group, a producer of high-end sneakers based in Florence area. The founders Marco Carli, Paolo Carli and Luca Pengo will retain a significant holding in River’s capital and will keep on managing the group which posted revenues of Euros 33 million in 2017 (see here a previous post by BeBeez).
The third deal saw NEIP III, an investment firm that belongs to Finint & Partners, announcing the acquisition of 70% of Spraytech srl, a producer of systems and accessories for the industrial painting and tanning sector. After this deal, NEIP III invested 90% of its assets, so Finint may launch a new private equity fundraising in the short term (see here a previous post by BeBeez).
Finally, on the secondary market, Banca Popolare di Vicenza sold Nem sgr, its private equity and mezzanine firm, to LWR srl. Nem manages assets worth a total of Euros 276 million split in two private equity funds and one mezzanine fund. Pop Vicenza is one of the two banks based in the Veneto Region (the other being Veneto Banca) that almost defaulted in 2016 and that Intesa Sanpaolo rescued last June. However, the commissioners in charge of liquidating the troubled banks had to sell Nem, and other assets separately as they were not of interest to the white knight (see here a previous post by BeBeez).
