Our project

Anima Alternative is an asset management company wholly owned by the ANIMA Group and focuses on investments in the equity and debt of privately owned companies.
Established at the beginning of 2020, in July 2020 Anima Alternative was authorized by the Bank of Italy to provide asset management services. In December 2020 Consob gave the go-ahead to the marketing of its first direct lending AIF.

The creation of Anima Alternative is a big step forward in our business diversification strategy. It will strengthen the capabilities of the ANIMA Group in offering tailored solutions to institutional investors.

Private markets are an area of great importance when responding to the growing demand for alternative income sources. The area complements the market segments already covered by the ANIMA Group.

In two years, Anima Alternative has successfully launched two direct lending funds:

• In January 2021, the Anima Alternative 1 direct lending fund completed its first closing and soon exceeded its target dimension, reaching €157 million;
• In April 2023, the second direct lending fund, Anima Alternative 2, commenced operations with a budget of €121 million, which in just a few months increased to the current €181 million.

Both funds are investing at a steady pace, demonstrating the soundness of their positioning as a means for institutional investors to access the growing investment opportunities in the private credit sector.

In the future, Anima Alternative will lean on the ANIMA Group infrastructure and the integration of Castello SGR to launch other private debt funds or products specializing in other private market segments.

With its funds, Anima Alternative supports companies with long-term financing solutions, sustaining them in their growth path on the domestic and international market.

Our investments almost exclusively target Italian companies, mainly SMEs (fewer than 500 employees) or mid-caps (fewer than 3,000 employees).

One of the distinctive features of Anima Alternative is its ability to invest with the utmost flexibility through debt instruments (loans or bonds) and minority shareholdings, including in combination.

Our investment targets are selected after careful analysis, combined with a strategic evaluation of their industrial project. Analyzing target companies' ESG (Environment, Social, Governance) policies is an integral part of the investment process.

As part of the ANIMA Group, Anima Alternative has been a member of UNPRI since its creation.

To consult further documentation, please refer to the section Sustainability-related disclosures