Mergermarket owner slashes jobs as pressure mounts on Andrea Pignataro’s empire
Largest unit of technology group Ion has stepped up cost-cutting amid scrutiny from creditors
The owner of financial data platforms including Mergermarket and Dealogic has cut over a fifth of its staff this year, as the largest unit of billionaire Andrea Pignataro’s technology group Ion stepped up cost-cutting amid increasing scrutiny from creditors.
Senior staff at the group were asked at the beginning of this year to reduce the business’s existing headcount to 4,500, from more than 6,000 staff at the turn of the year, according to three people with knowledge of the matter. So far the group has managed a reduction of more than 20 per cent to overall headcount, the people said.
The cuts have hit businesses across Ion Platforms, which holds businesses including Mergermarket, Dealogic and Fidessa. In June last year those businesses were consolidated under Ion Platforms, which is one of the largest issuers of junk debt in Europe.
Ion is still hiring, according to one person familiar with the matter, including staff who have signed but not yet joined. The group’s total headcount by year-end is expected to be above the 4,500 target, the person added.
Ion told creditors in the third quarter of last year that it was targeting savings of over $167mn from headcount “synergies”. In an update provided to creditors in June and seen by the FT, Ion said that it had already made changes that would result in a total $158mn of savings, with $9.2mn in “further headcount savings” still to complete.
In the last two decades Ion has become a key supplier of technology and data in the world’s financial markets, using cheap debt to buy dozens of specialist companies like Mergermarket, Fidessa, Wall Street Systems and Dealogic. But credit investors have become worried that higher rates will make its $11bn of debt unsustainable, just as AI threatens to reduce customer demand for some of the services Ion supplies.
Ion’s growth has made Pignataro one of Italy’s richest men and one of the largest players in Europe’s market for junk debt. On top of its publicly traded debt, Ion’s holding company has another $2.5bn of private debt from investors including BlackRock-owned private credit firm HPS.
The price of Ion’s mountain of debt plummeted at the beginning of the year as investors were spooked by the potential impact of AI on its software businesses, sending the price of a $1.5bn bond down to as low as 70 cents on the dollar in April, from about 96 cents in mid-January.
Ion Platform’s bonds have since recovered slightly. Most of the group’s publicly traded debt now comes with a yield of more than 10 per cent.
Ion’s financing costs have more than doubled since 2022 to about $800mn a year as central banks have raised interest rates, according to financial information seen by the FT.
The FT reported last month that Ion had missed rent payments on offices in three continents this year, prompting landlords to cut off access or threaten it with eviction.
Employees at Ion’s Sydney office this year arrived at work to find an eviction notice for late payment of about $90,000, while Ion’s staff in Munich were denied access to their office for weeks in July after about $40,000 in rent was not paid on time.
In Connecticut, the group’s landlord sued in May, alleging that one of Ion’s subsidiaries had failed to pay its rent in March and did not move out of the premises when asked.
The amounts due on the Sydney and Munich sites have now been paid, a person familiar with the situation said, and legal proceedings in Connecticut were withdrawn in July.
Ion declined to comment.