LONDON, Aug 11 (Reuters) - U.S. hedge fund Davidson Kempner Capital Management (DK) said on Friday it had agreed to sell Prelios to fintech firm ION Group, in a long-awaited deal which two sources said valued the Italian credit manager at 1.35 billion euros ($1.5 billion).
DK, which did not disclose the sale price, had been looking for a buyer for years, and held discussions for several months with ION.
Dublin-based ION Group was in turn in talks with banks for months to secure funding for the deal.
Founded by former Salomon Brothers trader Andrea Pignataro, ION Group provides services of trading, analytics, treasury and risk management for capital and commodity markets.
In 2021 in Italy alone, ION bought banking software provider Cedacri for $1.8 billion and acquired Cerved in a deal that valued the credit data and management group at nearly 2 billion euros.
Persons:
Salomon, Andrea Pignataro, UniCredit, Intesa, DK, Lazard, Prelios, Mediobanca, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Riccardo Serrini, Valentina Za, Pablo Mayo, David Goodman, Susan Fenton
Organizations:
Davidson, Capital Management, ION Group, ION ., ION, Reuters, BNP, Banco, Standard Chartered Bank, Mediobanca, UBS, X3, DK, Thomson
Locations:
ION . Dublin, Italy