ION Group gets central bank clearance to buy Italy's Prelios -sources (updated)

doValue

14/06/2024 17:17

(Adds details throughout)
    By Valentina Za
       MILAN, June 14 (Reuters) - Privately owned fintech group
ION has received a green light from Italy's central bank to buy
bad loan and property manager Prelios from U.S. hedge fund
Davidson Kempner, two sources with knowledge of the matter said
on Friday.
    The acquisition marks the latest investment by ION founder
Andrea Pignataro in his home country, following the 2021
purchase of Cedacri, Italy's main provider of outsourced IT
services to banks, and Cerved, a credit data group.
    It also marks the second deal in quick succession in Italy's
bad loan recovery sector, which became Europe's biggest in
recent years as lenders offloaded more than 300 billion euros in
impaired loans.
        With new flows having dried up for the time being, the
industry is consolidating to cut costs and sustain the IT
investments needed to digitise operations.
  
        
    Last week
     Italian bad loan firm doValue  DOVA.MI , which is backed by
U.S. investment firm Fortress Group, completed its acquisition
of rival Gardant, owned by U.S. fund Elliott Management.
  
        ION had first invested in the bad loan sector when it
bought Cerved, which had a small loan collection business.
  
        Pignataro's 6 billion euro ($6.4 billion) investments in
Italy in recent years have given ION a prominent role in the
country's financial sector as a supplier of key services, and
placed it in control of sensitive data.
  
        The Bank of Italy's approval of the latest transaction,
which sources had said valued Prelios above 1 billion euros
including debt, comes after an extensive assessment, including
of ION's complex corporate structure.
  
        The transaction has also been vetted by the government,
which has powers to shield assets deemed of strategic national
importance from unwanted interest.
  
        Rome 
    cleared it
     after securing from ION copies of the contracts for the
loans the group is relying upon to finance the buyout.
  
        A former Salomon Brothers trader with a background in
mathematics, Pignataro built his business empire outside of
Italy focusing on the supply of software for financial services,
such as trading or clearing operations, and data.
  
        
  
        
  
        
  
        
  
         
  

($1 = 0.9349 euros)

 (Reporting by Valentina Za; editing by Gavin Jones and Leslie
Adler)
 ((valentina.za@thomsonreuters.com; +39 02 6612 9526;))