Andrea Pignataro is one of the richest men in Italy, yet it remains an almost unknown figure. Founder and CEO of Ion Group, he built an empire in the financial data and software sector for banks and institutions. Second Forbesin 2024 his heritage Estimated amounted to 27.5 billion dollars, placing it in second place among Italian billionaires, immediately after Giovanni Ferrero.
Born in Bologna in 1970, graduated in economics and with a doctorate in mathematics achieved at the Imperial College in London, Pignataro began his career as a trader at the Salomon Brothers, the historic business bank of Wall Street. Since then he has maintained a low profile: no interviews, companies not listed on the stock exchange and almost no photos available online. Yet from behind the scenes, he built one of the most powerful and confidential realities of European finance.
Who is Andrea Pignataro
The entrepreneurial activity of Andrea Pignataro He begins in London, where he founded in 1999 Ion Investment Grouporiginally a joint venture between Salomon and an Italian software company, the Pisa list. The idea was born from the fact that too much time was wasted in the world of finance on operations that could be automated. Hence the creation of a “algo-company”, a structure designed to elaborate and manage decisions through algorithms and data.
Today Ion is a conglomerate with registered office in Ireland, but which operates all over the world. Owns companies such as Dealogic (financial content and analysis), Trusted (Trading software), and serves customers of the caliber of Amazon, Microsoft and 30% of the central world banks.
How did the money Andrea Pignataro
The heart of Pignataro’s wealth is Ion Group, his entrepreneurial creature. In just over twenty years, he has transformed a Fintech startup into a multinational company with five operating platforms that deal with data analysis, markets, finance, treasury and investments.
The approach is to acquire companies in the data and financial technology sectors, without ever giving control. Between 2004 and 2024, Pignataro has bought more than 30 companies. Some of the most known are:
- Cedacri, specialized in computer services for banks;
- Cerved, which collects and analyzes data on the budgets of companies;
- Prelios, active in the real estate sector and in the management of deteriorated credits;
- Bank participations in MPS, Illimity, Volterra Savings Bank.
Pignataro also invested in Macron, a sportswear brand and in the L’Aditrice house La Nave di Teseo. According to Forbes, 100% of his personal heritage is generated by Ion. A fact that brought him directly to second place among the richest Italians.
How much ion invoice
Define exactly the Ion turnover It is complicated, given its very fragmented and unlisted corporate structure. According to the most reliable estimates, the group has invoiced about 3 billion euros in 2022growing compared to 1.9 billion in 2019.
Italian activities, in only 2023, only generated over 1 billion euros in revenues:
- Cedacri with 489.2 million;
- Cerved with 483.9 million;
- List with 56 million;
- Ion Trading Italy with 19.6 million.
The group’s safe, Bessel Capital, based in Luxembourg, instead recorded 61 million turnover in 2023, doubling the 30 million of the previous year.
How many debts has Andrea Pignataro (and Ion Group)
If the turnover numbers are imposing, even those of the debt are. The ION group has financed much of its expansion through loans and bonds. The overall debt should be circumvented between 10 and 16 billion euros.
To acquire Cerved, for example, Ion issued bonds for 1.4 billion. For Cedacri, the Bond was 650 million. Another 3 billion dollars arrived from the American fund HPS Investment Partners, specialized in private debt. The entire debt is managed through complex tools: fixed and variable rate bonds, with long -term deadlines, which allow the group to refinance in a sustainable way.
In 2025, however, legal problems for the group emerged. The Bologna Prosecutor has opened an investigation for alleged tax evasion against Ion Group: according to the yellow flames, the group would have omitted for imposed for about 500 million euros Between 2013 and 2023, with penalties and interests that could bring the total to over 1.2 billion euros.
The investigation revolves around the tax residence of the group and Pignataro himself: for the Italian authorities, the center of economic interests would be in Italy, despite the registered office of Ion is in Ireland. The entrepreneur made it known that he wanted to collaborate with the investigators and to be considered unrelated to the accusations.
