Dedagroup: growth strategy continues to include a non-organic approach with the acquisition of Pegaso 2000

Trento, July 14, 2020 – Dedagroup S.p.A., the aggregating hub of leading Italian firms in the Software and Solutions as a Service market, currently operating in over 50 countries with more than 4,000 customers, announces the acquisition of Pegaso 2000, a historic IT firm based in the Umbria Region with a team of 70 people specializing in software solutions for applications in credit finance, guarantee schemes and funds and money markets. The announcement comes at the end of financial year 2020, the first year of the current business plan, in which the Group showed its ability to execute its organic growth strategies, even in complex conditions, along with its non-organic growth strategy, confirming its propensity not to slow its investments.

The acquisition — the fifth in just 12 months, to be finalized by the end of July — follows on a long, consolidated partnership between the two companies, which over time has demonstrated the value of the relationship to end clients. The goal is to permanently integrate into the Group's range the technologies and solutions offered by Pegaso 2000, adding dynamic, predictive models to complement the traditional parameters for evaluating and managing credit positions, through innovative solutions based on artificial intelligence algorithms and machine learning, which represent effective, indispensable evaluation tools for banks. 
The excellence of the range offered by Pegaso 2000 is borne out by its robust client portfolio, including major Italian banking groups and service centers, covering almost all of the Italian banking industry.

Marco Podini, Dedagroup S.p.A.’s Executive Chairman, commented: “In light of the current complex market conditions many companies — even healthy ones — need vital credit. This is the backdrop for the EBA guidelines on loan origination and monitoring (LOM) that have introduced rigorous credit monitoring standards to capture signs of deteriorating credit quality. These elements indicate a need for financial institutions to revise their credit granting and monitoring processes. For banks, equipping themselves with systems that can enable such companies to obtain financing means strengthening their customer relationships, while also protecting their businesses, in addition to optimally performing their social role in support of the country. This important new acquisition will allow us to achieve structural integration of high-value individuals and software solutions into our already advanced range and team, in keeping with our mission of supporting the economy in the challenge of the digital and technological transition.”

The transaction falls within the framework of the already extended scope of operation of the Group’s Finance Hub, headed by the subsidiary Dedagroup Business Solution, which leverages its extensive expertise in managing collections and payments to draw on strong, strategic synergies with the subsidiary Piteco (PITE:IM), a leader in treasury management for companies, and its subsidiary RAD Informatica, a software house specializing in debt recovery processes, in and out of court. With the addition of Pegaso 2000, the wide range of expertise of this hub now also covers the phases of management and granting of the initial loan, thus helping clients face the change brought on by Open Finance and the advent of new players. In the area of credit management, in particular, Pegaso can count on cutting-edge solutions to enable banks to remain competitive by adopting streamlined credit management and granting systems able to assess companies in various areas of analysis, and capable of ensuring credit monitoring even in a situation of extreme discontinuity and asymmetry, such as that we face today. 

Franco Cicogna, CEO of Pegaso 2000, concluded: “Pegaso 2000 is joining a federation of leading firms that make up an innovative Italian group at the forefront of digitalization in various strategic areas. In addition to filling me with pride, the idea of contributing to this process of change and improvement through the synergies and opportunities offered by Dedagroup renews my strong sense of enthusiasm and desire to expedite the further development of pioneering solutions in the world of finance. All this with the goals of streamlining and facilitating the evolution of banks’ digital processes, the ensuing support for Italy's economy, while continuing in this vein to give a powerful boost to our Company’s growth.”

Over the past two years, Pegaso 2000 — already an integral player in money markets with its ABACO suite — also developed agevolo.it, an innovative subsidized finance platform that has become a benchmark for the industry for all aspects of managing and sustaining initiatives in support of companies at the national and local level. A combination of features, tools, technology and services that made it possible to provide prompt support to banks — and hence to businesses — in implementing the initiatives framed in the new decrees, above all over this last year, thus helping various credit institutions throughout the phases of credit evaluation and granting.