Head of Division – Diversified Debt Funds, European Investment Fund
Francesco is responsible for investments in senior private credit funds specializing in asset-based, senior and/or unitranche financing to SME and mid-market companies across Europe.
The European Investment Fund is a AAA-rated FoF manager whose central mission is to support Europe's micro, small and medium-sized businesses (“SMEs”) by increasing their access to finance. To achieve its mission, EIF designs and develops venture and growth capital, private credit, guarantees, securitization and inclusive finance instruments that specifically target the lower mid-market and generate an appropriate risk adjusted return for its shareholders whilst supporting the broader EU agenda. EIF encourages funds to invest and private investment to ‘crowd in’, to create a sustainable financing ecosystem for Europe’s small business community.
The EIF has been voted “Investor of the year, Europe 2019” by readers of Private Debt Investor.
Current senior private credit investment activity is being carried out (i) within our policy-driven Senior Private Credit Programme (https://www.eif.org/what_we_do/egf/index.htm) and (ii) through private capital fundraising for our new FoF initiative: Asset Management Umbrella Fund (AMUF) - European Private Credit.
In EIF since 2009, Francesco has been responsible for investments in senior private credit funds since 2015, with approximately 30 funds invested in total. He was previously head of EIF's Portfolio Quantitative Analysis and Rating Methodology team.
Overall 21-years' professional experience includes positions in structured credit and risk portfolio modelling at Morgan Stanley and Capitalia.
Francesco has been speaker at several conferences including PDI, SuperInvestor, AltAssets, Alternative Credit Council and author or co-author of several articles, like EIF’s ‘Institutional non-bank lending and the role of debt funds’, PDI ‘Balancing the market’, PDI ‘Breathing life into ‘sponsor-less’ transac