About

In 2012 Fabio Niccoli was appointed as general counsel and participated in the start-up and launch of Fondo Strategico Italiano, a state owned holding company investing in national strategic assets and the first sovereign wealth fund created in Italy managing €4.5bn. As a completely new company, Niccoli was in charge of creating the entire legal structure of the business from scratch, including an internal regulation system. He was also appointed as a director in several portfolio companies and in the company’s investment committees. The investment fund is relatively untypical, in that it is structured on the basis of the development of the Italian economy, not only in investment performance. Some of its investments cover energy sustainability initiatives such as the €900m investment in Saipem, a listed global leader in the oil and gas sector in drilling services, engineering, construction and installation of pipelines and complex projects, onshore and offshore. Others focus on digital infrastructure such as the €500m investment in Open Fiber, with the aim to develop a fibre optics network throughout the country with a €4bn development plan to provide “fibre-to-the-home” coverage of 270 Italian cities and towns. Additionally, the company handled the transactions leading to the acquisition of 85% of Ansaldo Energia from Leonardo Finmeccanica and the following sale of a 40% to the industrial partner Shanghai Electric. About his innovative team structure, Niccoli says, ‘the legal department has been built starting from zero. It has been shaped taken into account international best practices in the private equity sector. Furthermore, given the nature of its controlling shareholding (the Italian state), its market investment activity has needed to be balanced with certain mandatory regulations applicable to such kind of entities which has posed significant challenges’. Niccoli started his career in 1999 at Bonelli Erede Pappalardo, a major Italian law firm specialising in the M&A and capital market fields. He then joined Gianni Origoni Grippo Cappelli & Partners focusing on M&A and private equity matters, before in 2006 participating in a spin-off as partner of newly-founded firm LMS (Labruna Mazziotti Segni) focusing on US and UK private equity firms.