How it started
History
The fund was established in 2011 as Fondo Strategico Italiano. Its mandate was to invest in strategic Italian companies to help them to compete globally. The fund's activity is restricted to healthy and profitable Italian businesses, with solid growth prospects, in need of capital injection to enlarge their business and be competitive on a global scale. The initial capital of the fund totalled €1 billion, with 90% of this sum contributed by CDP and 10% from Fintecna. The CDP is ready to inject a total amount of €4 billion.
The fund was set up by the state-controlled lender Cassa Depositi e Prestiti (CDP) on the directive of Economy Minister Giulio Tremonti, emulating a similar fund in France, allegedly after French dairy company Groupe Lactalis SA made a successful takeover bid for Parmalat.
The fund become a member of the International Forum of Sovereign Wealth Funds and signed up to the Santiago Principles on best precise on managing Sovereign Wealth Funds.
In September 2011, Maurizio Tamagnini, formerly a top investment banker at Merrill Lynch, was hired as the CEO of the fund. The position of chairman is filled by Giovanni Gorno Tempini, who was also the CEO of CDP, and is now its chairman of the board.
On 31 March 2016, Fondo Strategico Italiano was renamed into CDP Equity.
From Wikipedia’s article on CDP Equity, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.2