A private-equity fund managed by Italian PE firm J. Hirsch & Co. has taken a 65 percent stake in Panini SpA, the parent company of North American check-imaging-technology vendor Panini North America. The deal infuses capital from ILP Funds into Panini for its geographic and product-expansion plans announced in October, particularly in the U.S. remote-deposit-capture market, where banks are scrambling to acquire low-cost, MICR-enabled scanners for client-site check-image processing. “Whether [expansion] is in branch or payment products for treasury, we want to make sure we have the capital to do that,” says Doug Roberts, president of Panini North America in Cleveland, OH.
The participants didn’t publicly discuss dollars (or euros), but J.Hirsch’s investment won’t displace any of the current management headed by president Ugo Panini. The Hirsch deal includes the appointment of a new Panini SpA director: Roberto Romanin Jacur, a senior executive with Accenture, as head of European financial services.
