Equita closes the fund raising of Equita Private Debt Fund II to €237 million and completes two new investments

The second private debt fund managed by Equita raises €237 million commitments, significantly above the initially announced €200 million target

The Generali Group – through its Fenice 190 fund – among the new investors

Significant acceleration in capital deployment with two new investments that bring the number of deals in portfolio to 8 and the total invested capital to €118 million

Milan, 3rd August 2022

Equita, the leading independent Italian investment bank, is pleased to announce the final closing of Equita Private Debt Fund II (“EPD II” or the “Fund”), the PIR compliant, Italian closed-end fund managed by Equita Capital SGR, and the completion of two new investments.

The fundraising process, which formally ended on 30 June 2022, has led EPD II to reach total commitments of €237 million, significantly above the €200 million target announced at the time of launch.

Following the strong results of the first private debt fund launched in 2016 – that raised €100 million in 18 months and was fully invested in less than 3 years – several institutional investors, both Italian and international, have invested in EPD II.

Among the new investors is the fund “Fenice 190 – Generali European Program for Sustainable Economy” – initiative launched by Generali Group to invest €3.5 billion in 5 years to support the recovery of the European economies – which joins other important investors like Fondo Italiano d’Investimento, the European Investment Fund, ENPAM, Inarcassa, a leading Italian life insurance company and a major Italian pension fund.

Andrea Vismara, Chief Executive Officer at Equita, commented: “The fundraising of EPD II was a clear success and evidence of what we have built in the private debt industry over the years. Today Equita is recognised as a market leader in Italy in this asset class, due to our strong credit skills and to the quality of our execution capabilities. Such good result represents an important milestone towards the further development of our Alternative Asset Management activities and the achievement of the targets we set in our business plan to 2024.”

Paolo Pendenza, Head of private debt and Co-Head of Alternative Asset Management at Equita Capital SGR, commented: “We are really pleased with the fundraising of Equita Private Debt Fund II, not only for the amount raised but also for the quality of our investor base. This has improved significantly, being more diversified and mostly represented by repetitive investors in the asset class when compared with our first fund. We’re now very optimistic about the growth prospects of our alternative assets activities and look forward to working with this outstanding group of investors to grow our business in the future.”

In parallel to the fundraising process, the private debt team has continued to deploy the Fund’s capital. In July 2022, the team completed two new investments supporting a leading private equity fund in the execution of two separate acquisitions. As a result, EPD II has now completed 8 investments for an amount of about €118 million, equal to 50% of total commitments.

Moreover, in August 2022 our first fund, Equita Private Debt Fund, completed the divestment of its equity stake in Passione Unghie, a leading Italian player in the online sale of nailcare solutions. The investment, which was completed by the Equita team in 2019 and was awarded the AIFI’s best private debt deal in the LBO market in 2020, achieved an outstanding return. Following this divestment, Equita Private Debt Fund has returned 50% of the deployed capital to its investors.