An interview with Paolo Fancoli, Founder and Sole Director of Astebook S.r.l. Società Benefit.
In this interview Paolo Fancoli discusses how online judicial auctions have reshaped the market for assets coming out of insolvency proceedings, the work of appraising and repositioning industrial assets, the certification of auction processes, the introduction of AI agents into his company’s organisation, and the role a private operator can play in making the liquidation of distressed estates more efficient.
Paolo Fancoli has worked in the Italian judicial sales sector since 2008. In 2012 he founded Astebook, today a benefit corporation with offices in Milan and Lecco, listed in the Italian Ministry of Justice register of online sales managers. He sits on the Board of Directors of the Fondazione Luigi Einaudi.
A Career of Law and Markets
We started the interview by asking, “Could you introduce yourself and your professional background?”
Paolo Fancoli replied, “I have worked in judicial sales since 2008, and I founded Astebook in 2012. It is a profession that sits exactly halfway between law and the market: on one side, proceedings governed in detail by the Italian insolvency code; on the other, real assets – industrial buildings, production lines, warehouses, entire businesses – that somebody has to be able to value and then actually sell.
I come from commercial network management and business development, and that is where my central conviction comes from: in insolvency proceedings the problem is almost never the rules, it is demand. An asset that is properly described and taken to the right market is worth far more than the same asset put up for sale and left waiting to be found. For creditors, the difference between the two is measured in percentage points of recovery.
I also sit on the Board of Directors of the Fondazione Luigi Einaudi and am among the founders of Giurify, an artificial intelligence platform for the legal profession.”
Redefining Distressed Asset Sales
The Europe Time: What is Astebook and what is its role in the market?
Paolo Fancoli replied, “Astebook is a Società Benefit – a benefit corporation under Italian law – engaged in the appraisal, repositioning and sale of assets arising from insolvency proceedings, real estate enforcement, non-performing loan portfolios and public property. Offices in Milan and Lecco, operating throughout Italy.
A few things are worth mentioning because anyone can verify them. Astebook has been listed since 2017 in the Italian Ministry of Justice register of online sales managers – authorisation P.D.G. no. 7 of 17 October 2017 — and appears in Register A of websites authorised to publish statutory legal notices under Article 490 of the Italian Code of Civil Procedure; it holds the Legality Rating issued by the Italian Competition Authority and complies with Ministerial Decree 32/2015 on online judicial sales. These are credentials granted after formal review and maintained through periodic audits: in a market where anyone can call themselves an auction expert, that matters.
The work runs across three fronts. The first is the judicial sector we come from: courts, enforcement proceedings and judicial liquidations, where we have handled 4,431 lots representing more than €727 million in appraised value. The second is distressed credit, working for banks and servicers: for Intrum we have handled 842 lots with more than €242 million awarded, and for AMCO a portfolio of 45 lots sold at €28.3 million against a €32 million reserve.
The third front is the public sector: the disposal of property held by public bodies. It is an area of enormous value in Italy that still moves slowly, because it demands two things at once – defensible valuations and procedures that withstand audit. Many public bodies hold non-core property that has never really been surveyed: bequests, donations, income-producing buildings, land that serves no purpose in their mission. Before anything can be sold, you often have to establish what is actually owned.
Our tagline is “the system that changes the system”, and it is not wordplay: we operate inside rules we do not get to choose, which is precisely why the only room for improvement lies in how the work is done.”
The Vision behind Astebook
The Europe Time: What led you to found Astebook in 2012?
Paolo Fancoli replied, “In 2012 online judicial auctions in Italy were little more than a legislative hypothesis. Sales took place in courtrooms or in the offices of delegated professionals, the audience consisted of a few dozen people who were almost always the same, and advertising amounted to a notice nobody read. Everyone in the industry knows the result: unsold lots, successive price reductions, very long timelines and realisation values far below appraisal.
The insight was not technological, it was commercial. Putting an auction online achieves nothing unless you also bring the demand: you need to know who buys that type of asset, in which country, at what point in the year — and then go and find them. The platform is the instrument; the real work is building the pool of buyers.
The case that made the model obvious came three years later: the disposal of the Brazilian Pavilion from Expo 2015, handled together with Apex-Brasil by the companies then trading as Astexpo and Expo Invest, later consolidated into Astebook. More than four thousand square metres of temporary architecture, including the suspended net that millions of visitors had walked across, placed entirely online. That is the kind of asset with no local market at all: either you build the demand, or it does not sell.”
Expanding Access
The Europe Time: Why do online auctions matter for the future of asset sales?
Paolo Fancoli replied, “For a very practical reason: they widen the pool. With an in-person auction, an industrial building or a production line in an Italian province is seen by whoever lives within an hour’s drive. With a properly advertised online auction it can be seen by operators half a world away. The figures make the point: where a lot attracts at least two bidders, the hammer price exceeds the reserve by an average of 108%, and the overall success rate stands at around 81%.
More bidders means price formation closer to real value, fewer failed sale attempts and shorter proceedings. For creditors, and, where public bodies are involved, for taxpayers – that is precisely the difference that counts.
There is a second aspect that gets mentioned less but weighs just as much with me: traceability. In an online auction every bid is recorded with its time, bidder identity and amount, and that record remains available to the court and the officeholder. It is the most effective deterrent against the practices that have historically damaged this sector. Here transparency is not an abstract value: it is a technical function of the system.”
Technology, Transparency and Better Data
The Europe Time: How has technology transformed the industry?
Paolo Fancoli replied, “It has changed three things. The first is the distribution of information: today a lot can be presented with photographs, technical data sheets, video and machine nameplate details, and reach in a matter of hours an audience that was previously out of reach.
The second is process certification. Since 2019 the entire course of each auction has been recorded on blockchain, stage by stage. This is not a matter of image: it means the integrity of the sale can be verified by anyone, protecting the public body or the insolvency estate as much as the bidders. In a sector that runs on trust, being able to demonstrate that nothing was altered is worth more than any statement to that effect.
The third, less visible but decisive, is data. Every auction leaves a trace: how many views a lot received and from which countries, how many bids, and what price it closed at relative to appraisal. Across more than 4,500 appraisals and over €800 million in valued assets, that builds into an information base that allows us to appraise more accurately, set better reserve prices and identify earlier which assets should be pushed towards foreign markets.
That said, technology does not replace judgement. An appraisal remains a reasoned professional opinion, and no software signs a valuation on behalf of the person who takes responsibility for it.”
From Valuation to Final Sale
The Europe Time: In practical terms, how do you handle assets from a proceeding?
Paolo Fancoli replied, “It always starts with the site visit. Physical inventory, checking whether equipment is in working order, serial numbers, documentation, cadastral and planning compliance, encumbrances, contracts still in force. This is the stage most often underestimated, and it determines everything that follows.
Then comes the appraisal, using the comparative, income or transformation method, anchored to verifiable sources: IVS standards, official OMI market data, local transaction evidence. A valuation has to withstand scrutiny. In front of a judge, a board of statutory auditors or the national audit office, a figure that cannot be reconstructed is worth nothing.
Finally the sale: statutory advertising on the Ministry portal with multi-channel distribution, a targeted commercial campaign aimed at the relevant market, an asynchronous online auction, then transfer, logistics and handover. That last stretch matters more than people think: a foreign buyer who cannot see how to remove a plant very often does not bid at all.”
Taking Italian Assets to Global Buyers
The Europe Time: What role does international reach play?
Paolo Fancoli replied, “A decisive one for industrial assets. There is machinery with two or three potential buyers in Italy and dozens elsewhere, because in those markets the same technology is still fully in production use. The same asset, on the same day, is worth twice as much depending on where you offer it. We work across Europe and North Africa, particularly Egypt, and for individual transactions well beyond that.
The clearest example is the disposal of the plant of a wire-drawing works in Lombardy. The machinery was awarded to buyers in Egypt, Mexico and India, at roughly 80% above appraised value. That result does not come from advertising alone: on behalf of the successful bidders we also handled dismantling, loading, securing the equipment in containers and shipping. A buyer in India does not purchase a plant in Lombardy if he has to arrange the transport himself; solve that for him and he buys, and pays more.
In this business, going international does not mean opening an office abroad. It means knowing who buys and where, and removing every obstacle between that buyer and the asset.”
Building an AI-Enabled Organisation
The Europe Time: You are introducing AI agents into the company. How does that work?
Paolo Fancoli replied, “The project is called J.A.R.V.I.S. and it is being developed in-house with the support of Bespoken, an agency based in Bergamo. The stated goal is to be the first operator in our sector whose organisation chart includes AI agents working permanently alongside people.
There are ten agents, each with a name and a clearly defined remit. The first one in production drafts auction terms and conditions: a technical document, repetitive in structure but sensitive in content, where formal consistency matters and mistakes are costly.
The interesting part is not technical, it is organisational. Each agent sits under the direct responsibility of a member of the team, whose job is to teach it the work, correct it and validate its output. No document goes out unless someone has signed it. When I presented the project to our people I used a line that sums up the idea: we are not getting big, we are growing up. Bringing in artificial intelligence does not take decisions away from people, it asks more of them, and more deliberate ones.
I think that is the real dividing line over the next few years: not who adopts AI, but who is willing to redesign the way they work around it and take responsibility for the result.”
Innovation as a Collective Achievement
The Europe Time: You were recognised as CEO of the Year for Innovation and Telematic Auctions. What does that mean to you?
Paolo Fancoli replied, “The recognition gave credit to work that was above all collective. Innovation is almost never the result of one person: it takes a team, professional relationships built over years, and a willingness to question your own way of working while the market shifts underneath you.
The result that actually interests me, though, is a different one. If digital solutions make auctions simpler, more accessible and more transparent, the benefit does not stay with the company that built them: it goes to creditors who recover more and to proceedings that close sooner. Awards matter to the extent that they create responsibility.”
Business with a Broader Purpose
The Europe Time: Astebook is a benefit corporation. What does that mean in a sector like yours?
Paolo Fancoli replied, “It means a statutory obligation: to pursue purposes of common benefit alongside profit, and to report on them annually. It is not a statement of intent; it is written into the articles of association and binds the directors.
In our case the common benefit is almost inherent in the work. An industrial plant that comes out of a liquidation and goes back into production with another entrepreneur – in Italy, in Egypt or in India – instead of ending up as scrap is the circular economy in its most concrete form: material that is not destroyed, value that is not burned, and often jobs preserved somewhere else. Every well-run auction keeps a piece of productive capacity inside the system.
Alongside this there is our participation in CHANGE – A Chance for Future, and in July 2026 we co-organised “L’Officina della Crisi”, a full-day forum for professionals working in business crisis and insolvency.”
Investing in the Future of Legal AI
The Europe Time: You are among the founders of Giurify. What do you look for in a project like that?
Paolo Fancoli replied, “The same thing you look for when valuing a company in a proceeding: whether the value is really there or merely being described. Team, business model, the real size of the market and, above all, the ability to execute. The idea is the easy part.
Giurify is an artificial intelligence platform for the legal profession, created within the P49 hub in Padua, a benefit corporation founded among others by Federico Faggin. The thesis is straightforward: artificial intelligence is this generation’s industrial revolution, and professions built on document analysis will be among the first to change shape. I would rather take part in that from the inside than be on the receiving end of it.
Astebook remains the core business; Giurify is a look further ahead.”
Lessons for the Next Generation
Lastly we asked, “What message would you give to entrepreneurs and to the next generation?”
“The first is that business distress is not a moral failure. Working inside insolvency proceedings every day, you see how much time and value is lost because an entrepreneur waited too long before asking for help. The tools exist today, starting with negotiated crisis settlement, and they work far better when triggered early. Those who come early save the company; those who come late save, at best, the machinery.
The second concerns how you work. A company does not only grow in size: it has to grow in organisation, governance and the ability to delegate. Technology will change many things – we are rewriting our own processes around artificial intelligence as we speak, but credibility with courts, officeholders, banks and public bodies is still built the same way it always was: by doing what you said you would do, within the time you said you would do it.” Paolo Fancoli concluded
Connect with Paolo Fancoli on LinkedIn
For more information visit Astebook
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