OREANDA-NEWS. October 19, 2012. CEO of Intesa Sanpaolo Enrico Cucchiani and Gazprombank’s Chairman of the Board Andrei Akimov met in Milan.

The heads of two leading banks of Russia and Italy discussed various cooperation opportunities and gave an important consideration to the development status of the joint Private Equity Investment Fund. On July 23rd 2012, in the presence of Prime Ministers of Russia and Italy in Moscow, Intesa Sanpaolo and Gazprombank signed an agreement to set up a €300 mln Joint Venture for Private Equity investments. The Fund aims to focus on investments into Italian and Russian fast growing companies with international expansion plans– this concerns the Italian companies who plan to expand into Russia, as well as the Russian companies with an interest in developing in Italy and Europe.

The parties have pointed out that the Fund is a successful example of the Russian-Italian economic partnership. Joint collaboration provides a unique opportunity to combine the expertise of the leading European partners and the unmatched experience of the Russian companies operating in the dynamically growing market. The parties have discussed the projects pipeline and stated their intention to work outand sponsor the Fund’s first deals before the end of the year.

In the course of the meeting Mr. Akimov and Mr. Cucchiani discussed next steps in developing the relationship between the banks and pointed out that the Fund’s establishment set a good foundation forfurther broadening of the Banks’ joint partnership.