Nicola Facciorusso

PROFESSIONAL BACKGROUND:

As a Fellow of the Governance & Accountability Institute, Facciorusso is the main intellectual resource for “connecting the dots” on finance and related matters in the Middle East region and eastern Mediterranean on behalf of the Institute. Hank Boerner, Chairman and CEO of the Governance & Accountability Institute, said: “Nicola Facciorusso has one of the most brilliant minds today in understanding the complexity and ambiguity of finance in Southern Europe and the Middle East. Mr. Facciorusso is an important on-the ground resource for anyone seeking actionable financial/investment information in these two regions.”

A career investment banker, Nicola Facciorusso is President of Akros Consulting GmbH & Co., based in Munich. The firm focuses upon fund raising, joint ventures, pre IPO activity and secondary placements. 

Akros Consulting’s sector focus is predominantly centered upon pharmaceutical, renewable energy, agriculture and real estate industries. Mr. Facciorusso’s background includes 22 years of close-contact experience in advising institutional investors from Europe and the Middle East for the German equity market, as well as corporations from Greece for capital market transactions.

Of his firm, Mr. Facciorusso says: “Akros offers a seasoned, knowledgeable capital market consultancy to be availed by listed and non-listed companies. The scope of our business is to generate interest by corporate and strategic or financial investors in joining the project of the mandator as an investor or as a business partner, as well as in becoming a minority or majority shareholder of the company of which we have the mandate.”

Prior to forming Akros, Nicola Facciorusso was responsible for all investment banking issues affecting Sal. Oppenheim in Greece and the Middle East region and interacted closely with the firm’s Capital Market Sales, Industry Group/Relationship Management, Equity Capital Markets, Research, and M&A teams.

He was the bank’s first contact person for institutional investors (Sovereign Wealth Funds, Public Funds, Family Offices etc.), and for the respective government representatives. (As a rule, these were the Ministries of Finance and Labour, Secretaries of State for Public Works/Privatisation, etc.); also, for listed and unlisted companies; as well as local/international media.

He established and supervised networks of relationship management with companies and government representatives for investment banking and focused on these capital market activities:

• Capital market transactions for Equity Sales and/or for ECM (Listing/IPO, delisting, secondary placement, privatisation, etc.)
• Brokerage of corporate plans and activities from these regions to the departments M&A and Relationship Management of the bank.
• Brokerage of corporate plans and activities from the local German corporate network of the bank’s M&A and Industry Group/Relationship Management for corporations and investors from the Middle East and Greece. With the cooperation with the bank’s business partners in Spain and in Italy, the mutual brokerage of capital market transactions also applies to those countries as well..

In business relationships of many years’ standing, he supervised the strategic Capital Market Sales business of Bestinver Madrid, TorrealMadrid, ADIA / Abu Dhabi and Monte dei Paschi di Siena, Milan.

SUMMARY BIOGRAPHY

Began financial services career in apprenticeship - Dresdner Bank.

• 1986 to 2000: Responsible for acquisition and advisory of Southern European institutional investors for the German capital market at Dresdner Bank (today Commerzbank), CARIPLO (today Banca Intesa), BHF-Bank (today Sal.Oppenheim Group) and HVB Bank (today Unicredito).
• Since 1992: Managed equity sales by leading SWFs of the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
• 2000: Served as Senior Vice President Equity Sales for Southern Europe and Middle East at the German family-owned bank Sal.Oppenheim.
• Since 2005:  Coordinator of strategy and relationship of Sal.Oppenheim in the Greek capital market.
• 2008-2010: Director Corporate Brokerage coordinator of strategy and partnerships of Sal.Oppenheim in the Middle East. Research reports published about Middle East region and Greece (gateway to ME). 
• 2010-: Founder/President of Akros Consulting GmbH & Co., based in Munich.

He regularly conducted interviews and published articles about the German capital market in the Italian media network (leading print and television Italian players); speeches about the Middle East at conferences in New York City and in Germany; about the Greek capital market at conferences in Dubai, New York City, Athens and in Germany.

• Coordinated approximately 1,000 investor meeting  (IR and board member corporate roadshows) of mostly all German and Greek listed corporates for all key institutional investors in Southern European countries and in the Middle East.
• Coordinator for the banks of large investors conferences at IR and Board Member level for European institutional investor in Milan (yearly specialized one-day-conferences on one-to-one basis, up to 24 European Corporates for about 100 leading European institutional investors); in Dubai (in the Emirates the first ever made conference with the participation of 18 leading European large caps); and in Athens (yearly conferences of leading Greek listed companies dedicated to the key European institutional investors).

EXPERIENCE & EDUCATION

MEDIA APPEARANCES                           

• CFN – CNBC Milan (financial television network of the Italian Mediaset Group)
• Bloomberg Television
• RAI (Italian state-run broadcaster, special report in 1999)
• Antenna TV - Greek television.
• The Wall Street Journal Europe
• Reuters
• Borsa & Finanza (Italian financial newspaper
• Il Mondo (Italian financial magazine)
• Corriere della Sera (Italy)
• Milano Finanza
• MF Class Editori 
• CNBC Arabia
• Bloomberg Investimenti (Italian magazine)
• Reporter / Euro2day / Capital (Greek newspapers online)
• AMEinfo.com (Arab business newspaper online)
• Arabian Business (leading Arab financial magazine online)
• Zawya.com (Arab news platform online)
• Guest commentator, Italian financial magazine “Investire”  

Author: Trade book in preparation: “The Middle East as a New World Player,” scheduled for 2010.