ION Completes Acquisition of Italy’s Prelios for €1.35 Billion

ION Group completed the acquisition of Italian asset manager Prelios SpA for €1.35 billion ($1.5 billion), following months of back-and-forth with Italian authorities on the deal.

The acquisition, done through a unit called X3 Group, was financed by a group of banks led by UniCredit SpA, Intesa Sanpaolo SpA and BNP Paribas SA, ION said in a statement Friday. The announcement confirmed an earlier Bloomberg report.

“The deal is part of a broader strategy to improve asset management and efficient decision-making processes through the use of data,” Prelios Chairman Fabrizio Palenzona said in the statement. “The credit ...