Trento, Lodi – January 18, 2023 | Dedagroup, an aggregating hub of outstanding Italian companies within the Software and Solutions as a Service market, and Zucchetti, the first Italian software house by turnover, announce they have signed an agreement for the transfer of 100% of Piteco, the leading software house in Italy for Corporate Treasury and Financial Planning management solutions, and of its interest in Myrios.In addition to signing the sale agreement, Dedagroup and Zucchetti have launched a solid industrial partnership. This will allow Dedagroup and its Finance Hub to continue working synergistically with Piteco and Myrios. The other Piteco subsidiary, RAD Informatica, will instead be controlled directly by Dedagroup, integrating its development strategy within the Group’s Finance Hub. 

The Piteco transaction has been carried out by two companies with many common features distinctive of a family business tradition that has led to the development of large industrial Groups. On the one hand, Dedagroup, part of the Podini family’s holding company Lillo S.p.A., which recorded over €3.6 billion in revenues in 2022 - including its mass retail store business - and which has a workforce of over 10,000. On the other, the Zucchetti Group, founded and successfully run by the family of the same name: in recent years in particular, it has expanded its geographical footprint, also abroad, operating in 12 countries and with a workforce of over 8,000, working on an  extensive range of software solutions designed for professionals, trade associations and companies of every size, for a total of more than 700,000 customers.

THE INDUSTRIAL RATIONALE. By joining the Zucchetti Group, the two excellent Italian software houses Piteco and Myrios will be able to forge ahead with their growth path. The transaction also opens up the opportunity for them to contribute to expanding the reach of the first Italian software Group within the Large Corporate segment, where Zucchetti is already widely present thanks to its HR, corporate welfare, asset management, energy efficiency, manufacturing, and ERP solutions. Piteco's applications will be integrated with the other Zucchetti software. The ensuing wide range of products will allow customers to benefit from an overall improvement in process digitalization, optimization, and efficiency from combining multiple solutions. In line with its growth plans, Dedagroup will be able to use the resources arising from the sale to fund new acquisitions. Therefore, it will continue scouting leading Italian software and ICT companies to further implement the aggregation strategy and its organic growth. The transaction's closing, subject to the customary conditions precedent, is expected to occur in the coming weeks.

Giorgio Mini, Zucchetti’s Vice President, said: “Our acquisitions always aim to enrich our offering with innovative solutions that are already known and appreciated by the market. Piteco’s corporate treasury and financial planning applications, together with the risk management applications of the subsidiary Myrios, complement our ERP and other technological solutions. They will provide further added value to our customers thanks to increasingly requested features to make the most appropriate business strategy choices. Moreover, considering the type of customers served by Piteco and Myrios, we believe that the clients as well will benefit from the opportunities generated from the synergies with Zucchetti thanks to an integrated offering that will give them access to our solutions, such as cloud solutions for personnel management, in which we have been the market leader for years. As regards the management of the acquired companies, we will work together with the incumbent management, which —with all the personnel — over the years has proven to be highly professional in terms of both IT skills and knowledge of company processes.” 

Marco Podini, Dedagroup’s Executive Chairman, stated: "We have immediately understood that Zucchetti's excellence, which the market confirms both in terms of numbers and the high appreciation for its serious approach, would open up strong development opportunities for Piteco. With that same approach used to support a child's growth towards new experiences, without giving up on the relationship, but rather consolidating it, we decided to proceed with this transaction, in line with the mission that we have set ourselves of defining the best paths for the outstanding Italian software companies that we have selected over time. True to our approach of continuously reinvesting in our companies, together with Dedagroup's top managers, we will continue scouting the most promising Italian software houses further to implement the aggregation strategy along with our organic growth. That's why, last December, we announced our tenth acquisition since 2020, with the entry of Nodes into our Group, in addition to the acquisition of the controlling stake in ORS, a leading AI company. With these two transactions, we aimed at growing in the AI and Data Intelligence segments, on which we have focused for several years, besides the cloud, financial software, fashion, and public services areas."  

Paolo Virenti, Founder and CEO of Piteco, added: “The year 2023 marks the 20th anniversary of Piteco’s foundation and incorporation. We have come a long way since then: we have transformed intuition into a structured idea to develop our technology and business. These 20 years have been marked by ongoing growth at all levels, including people, platform features, market positioning, integrations generated by a careful M&A activity, figures and transparency, also thanks to the valuable experience gained with the 2015 IPO, which was followed by seven years of very satisfactory market performance. The fact that the largest Italian technological Group has chosen to invest in Piteco is, for us, a recognition of our important story. It marks the beginning of a new chapter, which we will write with great enthusiasm and energy. We are convinced that combining our expertise and that of the Zucchetti Group will bring new solutions and technologies for an increasingly efficient and strategic corporate finance management to thousands of Italian and international companies. This has always been our team’s mission.” 

Dedagroup was assisted in the transaction by Studio Scozzi - Dottori Commercialisti as tax advisor, Shearman & Sterling as legal advisor, and PWC Deals, J.P. Morgan, and Unicredit as financial advisors. Zucchetti was assisted by Mediobanca as financial advisor and Zucchetti Counsel Giuseppe Spernicelli as legal advisor, while BDO, supported by the Zucchetti internal accounting structure headed by Marialuisa Antoniazzi, acted as accounting advisor.