Italian pension funds are strengthening internal teams with expertise in private markets as allocations to alternatives rise and the asset management industry continues to evolve.
Roberto Lamonica, chief investment officer at Inarcassa, the €18bn pension fund for engineers and architects, said one of the main challenges is retaining staff with the skills needed to invest in private markets.
“Perhaps my biggest task is to fight to ensure that those working in the finance [department] have a different career path. We have a team of 20 people, very motivated and young, we hope to continue in this direction,” Lamonica said at the asset management industry event Salone del Risparmio in Milan last week.
Inarcassa is implementing an AI-native system to monitor alternative investments and asset managers’ valuations, as industry consolidation accelerates, Lamonica said, pointing to acquisitions by BlackRock.
“This means opening to retail [investors], with the risk on evergreen [funds] that we have seen in private credit,” and a risk of “lower quality of management”, Lamonica said.
Inarcassa, which has committed about €6bn to private markets, is conducting more granular due diligence focused on “quality track record” to assess how asset managers create value in portfolio companies.
Separately, the €3bn pension fund for workers in the Veneto region, Solidarietà Veneto, is “normalising” private market investment operations, according to general director Paolo Stefan.
The fund, which has committed close to €300m to private markets, is building in-house expertise to select alternative investment structures.
Stefan said developing internal capabilities is based on the belief that industry-wide pension funds (Fondi Negoziali) could play a strategic role in the Italian economy, provided they have “professionals” managing investment processes.
Assets under management have grown rapidly, outpacing the ability of the in-house team to deploy capital, he added.
As a result, Solidarietà Veneto has not yet reached the 20% private markets allocation limit permitted under Italian regulations.
The team, now 40-strong, and allocations to alternatives are expected to continue expanding in the coming years, Stefan said.
Keep investing despite contraction
First- and second-pillar pension funds are playing a growing role in supporting the domestic private markets industry.
Italian pension funds accounted for about 20% of the €10bn raised by private equity and venture capital funds in 2024–25, and 25% of the €1bn raised by private debt funds last year, according to data from AIFI and PwC.
However, private debt fundraising in Italy fell 26% year on year in 2024, the data showed.
Antonio Cavarero, head of investment at Generali Asset Management, said investors are increasingly focused on understanding credit and illiquidity risks in private credit strategies.
“If illiquidity risk is well understood and investments are conducted with the right governance, the asset class [private credit is] of absolute value and useful for portfolio diversification,” Cavarero said during the event.
