Leonardo, CDP and ELITE today sign a memorandum of understanding dedicated to the growth of companies that are part of Leonardo's supply chain. The agreement - linked to the partnership announced by ELITE and Leonardo last February and which is part of the Leonardo program called LEAP2020 - provides for the start of a collaboration aimed at fostering the growth of Leonardo's strategic suppliers, structuring and putting available tools and solutions, financial and otherwise, with a view to accelerating and supporting their development plans.
Leonardo, CDP and ELITE have decided to share their strengths in order to support production chains in their growth and development paths by adopting a system approach. The objective of the agreement is to start a concrete collaboration between the parties aimed at the study, research and evaluation of possible solutions in favor of the companies belonging to the "ELITE Leonardo Lounge", with the aim of improving their financial soundness and supporting their consolidation process and dimensional growth.
CDP, in line with its role as National Promotional Institute, promotes the development of Italy, using the country's savings responsibly to foster growth and employment, supporting, among other things, the innovation and competitiveness of businesses, infrastructure and the territory.
With the new 2019-2021 Business Plan, CDP has planned to mobilize its own resources for 83 billions of euros in business for the three-year period, through an integrated offer focused on innovation, growth and internationalization. With the aim of reaching 60.000 companies within the plan, this offer is developed on key areas of intervention such as subsidized credit instruments, interventions to support export and internationalization, alternative finance instruments, support for access to corporate credit, equity interventions.
In this perspective, CDP has identified some of the main national strategic supply chains that have a significant impact on the development of our country's competitiveness, launching specific initiatives - such as the present agreement in the field of Aerospace and Defense - which intend to support the companies belonging to these sectors.
ELITE is the international platform of the London Stock Exchange Group born in the Italian Stock Exchange in the 2012 in collaboration with Confindustria - with which it shares the objective of supporting the best Italian companies in an increasingly synergic way - and which aims to accelerate the growth of companies through an innovative path of organizational and managerial development aimed at making already deserving companies even more competitive, more visible and more attractive towards investors at a global level.
The international ELITE community reaches today 1.160 companies share, of which over Italian 700, for 84 billions of Euro of revenues and 490.000 employees.
In 2018 Leonardo, in line with its Business Plan, launched, at group level, a program of analysis and in-depth analysis of the activity with its suppliers called "LEAP2020" in order to strengthen its supply chain to make it sustainable in the medium-long term. The ultimate goal is to make the supplier base more solid in some high-impact categories, contributing to their dimensional and qualitative growth; to grow a selected pool of partners, integrated into Leonardo's production ecosystem and able to compete on the international market, consolidating poles of excellence on certain technologies and managing "critical" relationships with non-competitive suppliers.
Thanks to Leonardo, today the first group of 22 companies admitted to ELITE is announced, and part of Leonardo's supply chain, through the ELITE Leonardo Lounge, a model developed in co-design to meet the specific needs of these companies. The agreement with ELITE allows Leonardo's suppliers, who decide to join the program, to structure their growth and expansion plans that require high transversal skills, especially in terms of international development and internal organizational structure.
This first group of suppliers in the Leonardo supply chain, which now begins its journey, comes from 11 Italian regions and operates in the Aerospace and Defense industry, further confirming the importance of this chain in the country's real economy . The companies have an aggregate turnover of 360 million and employ over 2.400 employees.
Alessandro Profumo, CEO of Leonardo, commented: "We are very satisfied with the agreement with CDP and ELITE because it represents a further step forward in the path we have undertaken, in line with our Business Plan and with the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals of the UN Agenda 2030, to build a chain of solid and reliable supply in the Aerospace, Defense and Security (AD&S) sector in Italy. We firmly believe in the value of this initiative and we are convinced that the collaboration signed with CDP and ELITE can improve the development of the entrepreneurial fabric, a fundamental element of the national economic and industrial system ”.
Fabrizio Palermo, CEO of Cassa depositi e prestiti, commented: “Defense and Aerospace represent a significant part of the industrial and technological heritage of the country, with important repercussions on our economy also in terms of induced. By adopting a system approach, we have started a structured collaboration to concretely contribute to sustainable growth, the creation of new technological skills and the internationalization of Italian companies operating in these sectors. Thanks to an integrated and widespread supply of financial products, Cassa Depositi e Prestiti is able to offer concrete support to companies, including medium and small ones, which are part of Leonardo's manufacturing chain, contributing to supporting its competitiveness even beyond national boundaries ".
Raffaele Jerusalmi, President of ELITE and CEO of Borsa Italiana, commented: “We are proud to present today this important system agreement with Leonardo and CDP and that has the objective of supporting the economic growth of our industry. The production chains represent in fact a strategic asset of the Italian economy and favor its sustainability and further growth is one of the fundamental elements of the ELITE mission. Thanks to an integrated collaboration model, ELITE will make an international preparation and mentorship program available to the member companies of the Leonardo Lounge to support their managerial, strategic and governance growth and to facilitate access to capital sources to give further impetus to the growth of companies in the Leonardo supply chain ”.