Rubicon, Intesa in Global Advisory, Lending JV

Intesa Sanpaolo and financial advisory boutique Rubicon Capital Advisors have joined forces to advise and fund infrastructure and energy transactions globally.

Rubicon is to originate deals in countries where it has a focus and relationships, including Europe and North America, whilst Intesa, Italy’s largest commercial bank, will provide loans to these projects.

Intesa is hoping to expand abroad and increase its clients beyond its largely Italian retail and corporate customers. Mauro Micillo, the head of Intesa’s corporate and investment banking division, said the deal is in line with the bank’s effort to “enhance our effectiveness abroad, expanding our customer base and improving our commercial offering”.

Rubicon is expected to use its network of offices and relationships to source direct lending opportunities for Intesa, and cooperate in the syndication of deals supported by the bank.

Rubicon’s CEO Conor Kelly added that the partnership will focus on the global infrastructure, energy and utilities markets.

The agreement is expected to cover both brownfield and greenfield transactions, and has already a pipeline of potential deals identified.

Intesa has 11.8m customers in Italy and a market share of 12%, but also has a further 7.3m customers abroad and its subsidiaries operate in 12 countries across Eastern Europe, Middle East and North Africa.

This is the first partnership of its kind for Rubicon, which is also working closely with its minority shareholder Assured Guaranty.

This piece was published on June 12, 2019 and written by Antonio Fabrizio.