Billionaire Andrea Pignataro’s heavily indebted fintech empire is under increasing pressure in credit markets, as concerns over AI’s impact on software companies hit one of Europe’s largest sellers of junk bonds.
The sell-off in bonds issued by Ion Group, a debt-fuelled roll-up of financial data companies including Mergermarket, Fidessa and Dealogic, has accelerated in the past week, wiping hundreds of millions of dollars from the market value of a more than $10bn debt stack. Ion’s holding company has another $2.5bn of private debt.
Some of the group’s debt has tumbled in price, with one bond falling to 86 cents on the euro on Tuesday from about 96 cents in mid-January. The price drop means that some of Ion’s debt now comes with a yield of more than 10 per cent.