Italy: Avanzi Sri-Research merges with Vigeo

Avanzi SRI Research announced that the merger with Vigeo has been successfully carried out. Vigeo is one of the most important and internationally recognised social and environmental rating agencies. This merge reconfirms their position as European leaders in the sector. Vigeo has offices in 4 European cities: Paris, Casablanca, Brussels and now Milan. Vigeo SAS members agreed to buy Avanzi SRI Research 100% on the 12th of December 2006. The merge involved an exchange of actions between the founders of Avanzi SRI Research, Avanzi Srl e Federico Versace, and Vigeo. Thanks to this recent integration Avanzi SRI Research is able to re-evaluate its experience and to share what it has learned with the Vigeo group thus widening the scope for the Italian market which has recently been characterised by particularly interesting growth. Socially responsible products and services for institutional investors have been integrated into the SRI department and have benefited from Vigeo?s analysis methodology and their ?Equitics? and ?Ethique? range. Avanzi SRI Research?s social rating activities gather under the CSR Audit department and the italian managment team will work side by side with the CSR Audit di Gruppo management team. This new entity will be able to offer Italian enterprises an innovative extra-financial auditing service, a benchmarking activity and a shareholder identification service to find socially responsible investors. As a European group the roles of the Avanzi SRI Research management team are those of managment and governance thus the Vigeo Managment Committee is enriched by the Italian contribution. The president of Avanzi SRI Research, Matteo Bartolomeo, said that ?thanks to the fusion with the Vigeo group our team will be able to develop the Italian ‘SRI e della CSR Audit market with a high standard of quality in extra financial research?. Vigeo?s president, Nicole Notat, added that ?by buying Avanzi SRI Research Vigeo has confirmed its European leadership and can now count with an Italian team made up of 10 experts in the field of socially responsible investments and CSR Auditing.?