On October 28, 2021, Danilo Iervolino signed a document that changed his life. Two years after selling a 50% stake in his company Multiversity—which he had founded and grown into one of the largest online universities in Europe—to private equity firm CVC Capital Partners, he sold the rest to CVC for $1.3 billion. With the stroke of a pen, he gave up the business he had spent 15 years of his life building and found himself flush with cash—and effectively without a day job.
After taxes, Iervolino was left with roughly $1 billion, earning him the nickname “Mister Billion” in the Italian press. Then came the hard part: How was the freshly minted billionaire going to spend his new fortune?
Leaning forward on a white couch in the gold-accented living room of his villa in central Rome, Iervolino, 45, reflected on the sale. “I wanted new challenges,” he tells Forbes, clad in a black suit offset by a yellow tie and red pocket square. “I like to reinvent myself in many different industries.”
Now Italy’s newest billionaire is pursuing his passions, tinkering with plans to—as he puts it, “revolutionize”—businesses across a range of industries. Eighteen months after the sale, Iervolino has spent at least $200 million on everything from a soccer team and a cybersecurity firm to real estate and a media company that owns one of the country’s most storied magazines. He says he wants to focus on tech, with investments in several startups and venture capital funds. Still, the vast majority of his wealth is liquid: Forbes estimates Iervolino is worth $1 billion, with more than two thirds of it held in cash and stocks.
His main residence, a stone’s throw from the Roman Forum in the heart of the Eternal City, is another new purchase. Featuring painted ceilings and marble statues, Iervolino’s palace in Rome also sends a clear message to anyone who still hasn’t heard of him: the bootstrapping entrepreneur from provincial southern Italy, virtually unknown before the sale of Multiversity, now sees himself as a force to be reckoned with on the national stage.
Read the full story on Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/sites/giacomotognini/2023/04/30/what-do-you-do-when-you-suddenly-have-1-billion/?sh=6ee879697bba
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