Since 2021, over a thousand Italian companies have been acquired by foreign institutional investors. This is who they are, from Tim to Radici Group.
The latest prey to end up in the bag of a foreign company is Radici Groupa historic chemical company from Bergamo with 3 thousand employees and more than one billion euros in turnover. He bought it Lone Stara Texan fund, which has achieved yet another transfer of a piece of Made in Italy to the world of international finance and industry. Roots is added to Golden Goose, Prima Insurance, Saras, Ima, Bialettithe fixed network of Timthe gaming division of the group De Agostini and to dozens of other medium-sized companies whose ownership ended up across the border between 2024 and 2025.
Over the last four years, as revealed by the survey results of Kpmgmore than 5 thousand merger and acquisition (M&A) operations have been carried out in Italy: in over 1,400 cases they have seen the entry of a foreign company or fund into an Italian company.
Radici Group moves to the Texan Lone Star fund: Made in Italy continues to speak foreign
This phenomenon is linked to another worrying trend, the progressive emptying of Italian stock exchange: Over the past 10 years, nearly 200 companies have left Business Square and in 43% of cases the delisting coincided with the transfer of control to foreign capital.
We therefore find ourselves in a paradoxical situation, a vicious circle where the river of Italian savings irrigates the big names of Wall Streetwhile a trickle of liquidity flows towards listed Italian companies. Result: our companies are undervalued, cost little and become easy targets for funds. Let’s be clear, there are also Italian groups that are growing through acquisitions abroad, such as Campari, Ferrero, Prysmian, Beretta, Sesa (informatics). But our companies that manage to gain sufficient size to withstand international competition and become giants in their sector are few compared to those that risk ending up in the sights of large multinationals. And now above all about the funds of private equity whose weight is taking on increasingly important dimensions.
«Private equity has gone from an almost unknown phenomenon in the Nineties, with very few operators, to the current presence of over 220-230 active players, both Italian and foreign, increasingly specialized in specific sectors», he explains Maximilian Fianipartner of Kpmg Advisory and editor of the M&A report. «This increase is fueled by the ability of operators to raise capital made available by institutional investors such as pension funds, universities and affluent families. Their goal is not to be a locust that dismantles companies, but to create value and generate significant returns for investors. This implies a commitment to the growth and development of businesses.”
The private equity boom and the emptying of Piazza Affari
Fiani highlights that private equity plays a crucial role in helping Italian companies, often small and medium-sized, to grow and acquire an adequate size to compete globally. A direct transfer to a large foreign group does not necessarily occur. Often, the growth and aggregation process takes place in several phases: an initial national fund can sell the company to a larger Italian one, which in turn can then sell it to an international one or an industrial buyer. In the last five years, compared to over 6 thousand M&A operations in the Bel Paese, there have been over a thousand interventions by foreign actors.
The problem is that very often the fund drags the control of the Italian company into a consolidated international company whose strategies are decided abroad: a classic example is Ducatifirst passed through a couple of funds and then ended up with the group Audi-Volkswagenlike hundreds of other companies in the fashion, mechanical and food sectors.
Italy therefore finds itself facing two interconnected problems: the desertification of Made in Italy and the loss of importance of the stock exchange. We add that according to a recent study Pictet-Polimi over 345 billion will arrive in Italian family holdings thanks to the sale of companies. «Where will this capital end up?», asks the founder of Electa Ventures Simone Strocchi which, over the course of its thirty-year activity, has supported private equity operations for a value close to 20 billion euros. Strocchi is worried about the disappearance of Made in Italy and has been fighting for some time to create national champions: thanks to the support of one of his Spacs, Sesa was able to access capital and a list and then carry out over 70 acquisitions since 2013, maintaining Italian governance and sensitivity. With a turnover of 3 billion euros and an Ebitda of over 250 million, it is an example of an industry aggregator that has multiplied its value on the stock market.
Simone Strocchi’s strategy to defend industrial sovereignty
Always with the support of Electa Ventures was born Italian Wine Brandsthe largest listed private Italian wine group, which landed on the stock exchange on the EGM segment in 2015, and today is among the largest national private entities by turnover (395.9 million in 2025) which distributes its products in 95 countries around the world with a portfolio of over 70 brands, while in 2017 it was added to the main list. Another example is that of Pharmanutraa group founded by the Lacorte brothers, which has seen its value multiply over the years and is today present in over 80 countries around the world.
«I am not against foreign funds, the entry of new partners, especially international ones, can bring benefits such as opening up to new markets and company growth. However, in the medium to long term, there may be a loss of Italian sensitivity and territoriality”, he argues Strocchi. «Our companies become “establishments and flags in the world”, with decision-making centers often moving abroad. Production can be relocated to countries with lower costs once the brand and the market have been acquired, with less attachment to Italy to optimize margins.”
According to Strocchi, the homeland’s industrial fabric risks becoming a showcase on sale. And the causes are the lack of connection between national savings and investments in national companies, the undervaluation of Piazza Affari and a regulation that favors liquidity over value: «Fund managers are conditioned by regulations that push them to seek volume and liquidity, rather than value. This leads to investing in large North American capitalizations with high multiples, supported by promises of future growth. But it is unthinkable to continue directing billions of Italians’ savings to support investments in large caps everywhere and transforming Italy and our SMEs into a hunting ground for foreign buyers. We must return to giving Borsa Italiana a strategic infrastructure function that it has lost today.”
Strocchi, among the protagonists of the meeting on May 14th in the Chamber of Deputies organized by Axonext (association of listed SMEs) precisely on the topic of industrial sovereignty, indicates some possible solutions: how to provide for a minimum investment quota on the part of the funds and social security institutions – in the order of 1-2% – intended for growth markets. This would be an approach consistent with a framework envisaged at European level and therefore substantially immune from possible community concerns. «After all, it had already emerged in the 5th Report Assogestioni-Censis that over 69% of Italian savers believe it is preferable to invest in national financial instruments and around 48% even declare themselves willing to accept even lower returns in order to support the domestic economy, on which the future of the pension funds themselves depends. It is a significant figure because it is a sign of a growing awareness of the link between private savings, industrial development and the country’s resilience. Politics has one more reason to support accumulation plans and financial, insurance and social security products aimed at supporting the national economy with preferential taxation”.
Furthermore, Rome should insist at a European level that the regulations on investment funds are not penalizing its economic fabric, dominated by SMEs, a peculiarity that Northern European countries struggle to understand. Finally, entrepreneurs should do their part by embracing shared governance to attract investors and creating combinations that create larger, more competitive industrial groups. And this is perhaps the most difficult part.
