The future of global finance and growth, between geopolitics and new public-private partnerships

From new opportunities in emerging countries to investments in sustainable infrastructure, from private equity to venture capital: in the world of investment, the most recent changes at the global level are giving rise to new ways of public-private cooperation. For the "Private and Public Investment Forum," an event organized together with the SDA Bocconi Finance Club, SDA Bocconi invited some outstanding guests to help with the interpretation of the current scenario and identify key future prospects.

Opening the discussion, Douraid Zaghouani, COO of the Investment Corporation of Dubai, offered an overview of the latest market developments in the UAE, with a focus on the new challenges posed by sustainability and water conservation. In this regard, Dubai is at the center of many investment deals due to its ability to attract the best managers from around the world and to offer attractive development prospects, including from an ESG perspective.

Equally, Africa is taking a leading role in both public and private sector investment. In fact, in the race for innovation by the two Euro-Atlantic and Chinese blocs, the African continent offers important opportunities related to its extreme wealth in terms of raw materials and natural resources. As pointed out by Vincenzo Ercole Salazar Sarsfield of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Fabrizio Ninfa of Assoimprese Africa, Alessandro Corbari of Talisman Holding & Investment Funds, and Gabriele Spinelli of UBS, this is a relevant factor for the entire technology market, which is increasingly engaged in the search for new sources of supply for microchip production.

During the afternoon, the panelists highlighted the greatest future prospects for infrastructure investment, driven by an increasing focus on sustainability and ecology. Serge-Alexandre Lauper of BlackRock, Pietro Roulph of Antin Infrastructure Partners, Francesco Maggi of Sosteneo Infrastructure Partners, and Federica Vasquez of Ardian discussed the topic. During the discussion, the role of infrastructure as a key element in facilitating the energy transition, decarbonization and the shift to electric power emerged. From this perspective, investments are making a significant contribution to building an increasingly sustainable and environmentally friendly future.

The Forum then hosted a panel devoted to the profound transformations that are taking place in the private equity sector, which is becoming increasingly attractive even to large companies and groups. The panel consisted of Anna Skoglund of Goldman Sachs, Giampiero Mazza of CVC Capital Partners, Francesco Casiraghi of Advent International, and Valeria Rebulla of KKR. The discussion shed light on the important evolutions that the entire sector is going through: from a "fragmented" structure where mainly small- to medium-sized realities found their place, we are quickly moving to a more complex market, within which large companies and investment funds are introducing increasingly structured and international business models.

Finally, the last panel of the day focused on venture capital-related investment activities and their link to the development of the technology and IT sector. A number of prominent managers such as Simon Ardiss of Italian Angels for Growth, Giuseppe Donvito of P101, Umberto Malesci of Cisco and Andrea T. Orlando of Startup Wise Guys participated in this debate.

SDA Bocconi School of Management