Agnelli investment firm hires former UK minister Osborne

PARIS/LONDON (Reuters) – Lingotto Investment Management, backed by Italy’s Agnelli family, has hired former British Finance Minister George Osborne and veteran fund manager James Anderson as it weighs expanding its assets under management, it said on Monday.

Owned by Exor NV, the Agnelli family holding company, Lingotto, builds on investment activities Exor previously managed on behalf of its former reinsurance unit ParnerRe, which it sold last year to French insurance group Covea.

Lingotto had around $3 billion in assets under management at the end of March provided by Exor and Covea.

“Going forward, Lingotto will also consider selectively increasing the amount of third party assets it manages,” the investment company said in a statement.

Osborne will be non-executive chairman of Lingotto. He served as British finance minister from 2010-2016 and has since held a variety of roles and is currently a partner at investment bank Robey Warshaw.

Anderson’s role will be to invest in innovation. He previously worked for Edinburgh-based Baillie Gifford where he was an early investor in companies such as Amazon and Tesla.

Anderson, a Briton, is also chairman of Swedish investment firm Kinnevik.

Lingotto, based in London and previously known as Exor Capital, is headed by CEO Enrico Vellano. Named after a big Fiat factory built in Turin a century ago by the Agnellis, Lingotto can be translated as “ingot”.

(Reporting by Sudip Kar-Gupta in Paris, Keith Weir in London, Giulio Piovaccari in Milan; Editing by Kirsten Donovan and Bernadette Baum)