Forbes: Andrea Pignataro overtakes Giovanni Ferrero to become Italy’s richest man

Milan, 21 February (LaPresse) – Andrea Pignataro, founder of the software and financial data company Ion Group, has become Italy’s richest person. According to Forbes’ real-time ranking, his net worth has risen to $42.8 billion: half a billion more than Giovanni Ferrero, who had been at the top of the ranking for over four years. The last person to surpass him, for a brief period, was Leonardo Del Vecchio, founder of Luxottica. Pignataro was born in 1970 in Bologna, where he graduated with a degree in economics. He obtained a doctorate in mathematics from Imperial College London, then worked at Salomon Brothers, the historic Wall Street investment bank that merged with Citigroup in the late 1990s. He founded Ion in 1999. He is one of the most reserved Italian billionaires. He hardly ever speaks to the press and there are few photos of him in circulation, most of which are dated. He is known to love sailing and over the years has invested in real estate in St. Moritz, London, Milan, Pisa and Sardinia. He also spent £300 million on Canouan Estate, a 1,280-acre property with luxury villas and hotels in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines in the Caribbean. On a personal level, he has also ventured outside the world of finance and data by investing in Macron, a sportswear brand from his hometown.