Made in Italy, from Ariston to Ferrero who are the «serial buyers» – Corriere.it

They are called serial acquirers, they are serial buyers: the champion shopping companies, the ones that expand the most with mergers and acquisitions. After a period of relative calm, they are back on the move, including in Italy.They are called Ferrero and Ariston, Webuild and Zucchetti, to stay with the first operations of this year. But also Perfetti and Recordati, EssilorLuxottica and Campari, Barilla and Fedrigoni, to go to last year. Or even public companies such as Poste and Eni, Leonardo and Italgas, municipal companies such as A2A and Acea.

The consolidation

The number of Italian serial acquirers is on the rise and 2023 confirms the trend, especially for energy and services – says Eugenio Morpurgo, managing director of Fineurop Soditic, an independent company specializing in mergers and acquisitions, and chairman of the Aifi M&A commission, the association of private equity and venture capital funds —. The trend towards consolidation is stronger. Small and medium-sized companies are more inclined than three years ago to sell energy, raw materials and logistics after the Covid crisis. And there is a lot of liquidity. The sellers can be funds or families, in any case there is a tendency to sell the entire company. There are no great stews in Italy.

Prices and sectors

Prices, the operators note, travel at an average multiple of about 9-10 times the EBITDA, with sectors such as health and information technology rising 13-14 times and others such as auto components, oil & gas, mechanics falling below nine times. For this year – says Morpurgo – the trend towards investments in energy, food and services is confirmed, where companies such as Ferrero and Poste have built a strong M&A team.

Top 20 acquirers

Fineurop Soditic has analyzed for The Economy of the Corriere della Sera the behaviors of the 20 largest serial buyers in 2022, chosen from a sample of 53 serial acquirers among the Italian companies in its database. The value of the first 20 deals in the sample exceeded 11 billion. The sector towards which the flow of capital is most directed is energy (30% of operations), followed by pharmaceuticals (20%) and services (15%). Fourth place (10%) tied for industry and tmt (telecommunications, media and technology), fifth for fashion & luxury and food (5%). Most of the acquisitions, 60% of the sample, took place abroad, above all in the United States which are the first destination (35%) by number of operations from Italy. Greece follows (10%), followed by Germany, Belgium and France (5%).

Quoted and not

As for the shareholding structure of the companies that go shopping, most of which are listed (70% of the sample), demonstrating how the Stock Exchange can be a driving force in growth for external lines. 20% of the purchasing companies selected by Fineurop Soditic are unlisted and half of these are owned by private equity funds. a patrol that is increasing with the strategy of value creation – says Morpurgo -. Price-competitive private equity versus strategic players and build-up, growth strategy plays an important role in value creation, much more than the excessive use of leverage or arbitrage on output values. Among the cases, Jakala (whose shareholder is Ardian), Lutech (Apax), Recordati (Cvc).