French asset manager Tikehau Capital strenghts Italy’s team and announces it has hired as senior advisor for its Milan office Ignazio Rocco di Torrepadula, till now senior advisor at Boston Consulting Group and head of the financial institutions practice for Central Europe (download here the press release).
Luca Bucelli, who in turn joined Tikehau Capital in 2014, will leave Paris and move to Milan. Di Torrepadula and Bucelli will work strictly together with  Jean-Pierre Mustier, the French manager former head of Unicredit‘s investment banking who just joined Tikehau in London a few days ago as a partner (see here the press release). For Mustier this is a coming back home as he used to be a senior adviser and a shareholder of Tikehau prior to his entry in Unicredit. The Italian bank is by the way a shareholder of Tikehau, together with Amundi (Credit Agricole) and Credit Mutuel Arkea.
Tikehau Capital has a strong track record in developing and offering direct lending solutions to corporate borrowers, as illustrated by its 355 million euro French SMEs Novo Fund. It will seek to replicate this success in Italy, where there is a growing need to provide alternative financing channels for the SMEs segment.
Last October Tikehau Investment Management structured an unitrnahce financing together with Emisys Capital supporting the acquisition of G.F. spa, an Italian company active in the industiasl automation sector, which has been bought out by a group of Italian investors led by LBO Italia Investimenti srl (see here a previous post by BeBeez).
Tikehau is now in fundraising with its Tikehau Direct Lending III having a 500-750 million euros target (see here Tikehau’s monthly letter).
