Equita appoints Andrea Ferrari as Head of Equity Capital Markets and strengthens the Investment Banking division to further build position in Italian capital markets

Equita, the leading Italian independent investment bank, today announces that Andrea Ferrari is joining the Group as Head of Equity Capital Markets effective 1 June 2020. The appointment strengthens the Investment Banking division and further reinforces the Equita’s leading position in Italy’s capital markets.

Andrea Ferrari joins Equita’s Global Financing, the area that over the past five years has consistently confirmed its leading position in the Italian market thanks to a successful track-record where it completed 33 Equity and Debt Capital Markets’ transactions and raised a total of approximately Euro 4.4 billion on behalf of corporates and financial institutions.

Andrea Ferrari has more than 15 years’ experience in investment banking and for the past 10 years he has held position at Morgan Stanley as Head of Equity Capital Markets for Italy and the Netherlands. Before moving to Morgan Stanley, he was part of the investment banking team at Merrill Lynch and the Equity Capital Markets desk at UniCredit. Over the course of his career, he has advised on more than 100 Equity Capital Markets’ transactions, for a total consideration of more than US Dollar 110 billion.

Andrea Vismara, Chief Executive Officer of Equita, commented: “I am delighted that Andrea Ferrari is joining our team. Hiring a senior professional like Andrea Ferrari in the Global Financing team confirms the importance that the investment banking division has for Equita and this will help to accelerate our growth plans”. Vismara continued: “ We want to further strengthen our position in the investment banking sector and we have a simple and clear goal: helping our clients raise new capital on the markets and assisting them in their strategic financial transactions by providing  independent advisory.”

Equita’s Global Financing team has built a leading position in the Italian market thanks to wide offering of Equity Capital Markets, Debt Capital Markets and Debt Advisory services, coupled with top-quality Corporate Broking activities, the latter managing today more than 50 active mandates with listed companies, helping clients to achieve more visibility and increase the liquidity of their listed instruments.

In 2019, the Equity Capital Markets team executed two of the four successfully completed IPOs on the MTA market. Equita was Joint Global Coordinator and Joint Bookrunner in the IPO of Italian Exhibition Group, and Joint Global Coordinator, Joint Bookrunner and Sponsor in the IPO of Newlat Food. The Equity Capital Markets team also acted as Sole Bookrunner in the Reverse ABB of Gamenet and in the ABB of Aquafil, as Co-Lead Manager in the capital increase of Salini Impregilo and as intermediary in charge of coordinating the collection of acceptances in the takeovers of Banco di Sardegna, Bomi, Gambero Rosso, Nice and Parmalat. 2019 was a robust year also for the Debt Capital Markets team, who acted – inter alia – as Placement Agent in the issue of IVS Group of a Euro 300 million senior unsecured bond, as Placement Agent and Sole Bookrunner in the issue of Alerion Clean Power of a senior unsecured bond of Euro 200 million (the first green corporate bond distributed using the MOT platform of Borsa Italiana) and as Joint Bookrunner in the issue of Società per la Gestione di Attività – S.G.A. of a senior unsecured bond of Euro 250 million.

Despite the uncertainty caused by COVID-19 pandemic, the first months of 2020 offered encouraging signals for the future in terms of potential transactions in Equity and Debt Capital Markets as well as for the growing role of Equita as Corporate Broker and Specialist where Equita is committed to help listed companies tackle these challenging times, arranging meetings and videoconferences with institutional investors and assisting managers in their strategic communication to the market.