Non-bank finance for firms: the role of private equity funds in Italy

Using fund-, firm- and bank-level data, we investigate the investments of the Italian private equity (PE) funds, with a focus on the north-western regions of Italy, where both the PE fund managers and their investments are heavily concentrated. The average size of the portfolios is small by international standards, and their concentration by firm has been growing after the 2008 crisis. The average duration of investments is rather short (about 3.7 years), and less than 10 % of them target firms that are both young and innovative. PE investments by Italian fund managers are still underdeveloped, relative to traditional bank credit. We find that being participated by a PE fund increases the amount of credit obtained by the target firm and the number of bank relationships, whereas it leaves the cost of credit unaffected. The effect of the PE fund participation is exclusively related to the entry of the fund in the firm’s capital, as it fades away as soon as the fund exits from the capital, thus suggesting a weak signalling role of PE towards banks.