The entrepreneur Andrea Pignataro is the second richest Italian, behind only Giovanni Ferrero in the traditional Forbes ranking!
The entrepreneur from Bologna who moved to London in the 90s is the patron and founder of the ION Group which today controls several dozen companies. Risen to prominence in Italy in recent years following some operations, among which the acquisition of Cerved, Cedacri and the one in the closing phase of the Prelios Group stands out.
Pignataro, born in 1970, graduated in Bologna and moved to London immediately after graduation. He began his career as a trader at Salomon Brothers, at the time one of the most important US investment banks. In 1997, while still working at Salomon, he was increasingly aware of the strategic and vital importance of information technology and data management in the financial markets Pignataro founded Ion, at the time a joint venture between Salomon and List and two years later he founded Endeavor Capital, a hedge fund with which he took over Ion.
In Italy, after the acquisition of Cedacri S.p.A., specialized in IT outsourcing services for the banking sector, of the info provider and credit servicer Cerved and of shareholdings in some banks, it is now completing the acquisition of the credit servicer Prelios.
According to Forbes estimates, Pignataro can count on assets of 27.5 billion dollars. A fact that, however, he has to take into account with the rather significant debt exposure that he had to resort to in order to expand his group in such a limited time.
