Летают ли в итальянском небе фонды-стервятники? Эмпирическое исследование итальянского рынка

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to provide a comprehensive overview of turnaround financing in Italy, meaning operations regarding distressed or troubled companies, carried out by professional private equity investors. A significant change within the sector was expected due to both internal and external factors, a more developed private equity market and the reform of the bankruptcy law in primis. The wider range of solutions offered by the new set of laws, in fact, aimed at easing the successful restructuring of distressed companies. However empirical data highlight only a modest increase of the overall investments despite a growing interest toward the topic. Sector data show that investments in restructuring are increasing but are always less then 5% of the Italian private equity market. Furthermore there is evidence that two private equity funds have based their activity on restructuring operations and are now able to cover deals of any size. The new legislative framework will probably cause significant, long-term effects; nonetheless, some delicate issues causing the slow development of the Italian market for distressed securities still remain unresolved. Alessandro Danovi: Associate professor Università degli Studi di Bergamo, Italy. alessandro.danovi@unibg.it