Private Equity in Italia: caratteristiche del mercato e ruolo per le imprese

The purposes of this work is threefold. First, it is important to see how the hypotheses developed in the theory of corporate finance should be adjusted to be applied in the private equity context. Second, the paper illustrates the characteristics of the Italian private equity market in terms of investments, operators, fund raising, disinvestments and performance. The AIFI (Associazione Italiana del Private Equity e Venture Capital) and PEM (Private Equity Monitoring) data are used. Third, the paper gives an idea of private equity role at firm level. In particular, the results of some studies show that the equity investments: facilitates the firm’s growth; improves the corporate governance; helps the firms during crises; improves the economic and financial communication.