The American fund Carlyle deals with Alberto Genovese’s stake in Prima Assicurazioni, a well-known insurance group specializing in online policies that has grown from a start-up to a rapidly growing reality. The subject of the negotiation would be the share (indirectly 25%) of Genovese, the entrepreneur jailed in November last year on charges of sexual violence. Carlyle would be on the transaction through the vehicle Credit Opportunities Fund. The parties are said to be working on shareholder agreements, including with other minority shareholders. The discussions are still complex and the end of the negotiation, if it goes through, is expected in September.
A reorganization of the shares of Genovese was initiated in recent months: a necessary operation, also in compliance with the ESG (environmental, social, and corporate Governance) criteria. Prima’s minority shareholders include Anglo-Saxon investors such as Goldman Sachs and Blackstone who require compliance with certain ethical criteria. In April, an assignment was thus entrusted to the investment bank Vitale, to organize a process for the sale of the shares, and also to the advisory firm Partners, which instead carried out an evaluation of the insurance company. After a screening of potential interested parties in the Genovese share package, Permira, Softbak, the US Carlyle group, but also the American Silicon Valley Bank emerged, among others.
Loading…
In the end, the latter, which seemed to be a favorite in the first phase, withdrew and for Prima Assicurazioni the race turned into a head to head between the Japanese Softbank and Carlyle. The latter group (flanked by the lawyers of Latham & Watkins) would now be favored, while Softbank would be at the window. But there would be several governance issues to be fixed.
According to rumors, the overall assessment (in terms of Ev) that would have been given to Prima Assicurazioni would be around 900 million: based on the growth of recent years. In fact, 2020 closed with gross premiums of around 290 million euros with over one million customers, more than double the just over 131 million premiums in 2019. Founded in 2014 by Alberto Genovese and Teodoro D’Ambrosio, today Prima’s capital is 50.6% controlled by First Technologies Holding (the former Alberto Genovese Technologies, controlled by Genovese and invested in by D’Ambrosio), with Goldman Sachs Private Capital Investing and Blackstone’s Tactical Opportunities fund which today own little less than 40% of the capital, since they signed a 100 million euro investment round in October 2018.