CS Holding — Weekly Focus · October 9, 2026

This week AI got its own adjusted-EBITDA moment. According to the Financial Times, OpenAI told investors its annualized revenue is approaching USD 50 billion, about USD 20 billion below the figure that was circulating ten days earlier.

Tech stocks closed lower on Thursday and recovered on Friday. Google put a single work agent inside the office suite, and Mistral opened a preview of a European model that will be able to run on-premises. In Italy, EY-Parthenon counted more deals and less value over nine months, and the Monforte search fund closed its third acquisition.

01 WILDCARD USD 20B GAP

OpenAI's run-rate is near USD 50 billion, not 70. It depends on what you count

On October 8 the Financial Times reported that OpenAI told investors its annualized revenue is "approaching $50 billion". On September 29 Axios had reported a figure approaching USD 70 billion. The USD 20 billion gap is a methodology gap: the 70 figure came from OpenAI's own investors trying to match Anthropic's run-rate, and Anthropic counts sales made through its cloud partners while OpenAI does not.

Tech stocks closed lower on Thursday after the report and recovered on Friday, with the Dow and the S&P 500 ending the week higher. For anyone who buys companies the lesson is familiar. A revenue multiple is only as good as the definition of revenue underneath it, and any "AI revenue" a target or a fund puts in front of you deserves the same scepticism as a small company's adjusted EBITDA.

02 AI 1,000+ AGENTS

Google puts one agent inside the office suite. Orange Spain plans more than a thousand

At Gemini at Work on October 8, Google introduced a single, universal Gemini agent for work. It is in private preview, and it connects natively to Workspace as well as Slack and Microsoft 365. The customer cases came with names: Orange Spain will deploy more than 1,000 custom agents, Balyasny uses Gemini models across more than 200 investment teams, and On migrated 24 critical services in weeks with a multi-agent setup.

On October 6 Mistral opened a public preview of Mistral Large 4, a trillion-parameter model trained in its own European data centers that will be able to run in a private cloud or on-premises. Mistral says it will release the weights by the end of the month. For an Italian SME, the agent is becoming a setting inside software it already pays for, and there is now a European option for data that cannot leave the building.

03 M&A ITALY 56% ADD-ON

Clessidra buys 60% of Vega Formazione, and the founders keep 40%

On October 6 BeBeez reported that Clessidra Capital Partners 4 has acquired 60% of Vega Formazione, a training company with revenue above EUR 20 million that trains about a thousand people a day. Founders Rossato, Maritan and Dalla Pozza reinvest for the remaining 40% and keep their operating roles. Funds managed by Tikehau Capital finance the deal, and the plan is to grow by acquisition. The official release disclosed neither terms nor the exact stake.

EY-Parthenon supplied the frame on October 8: 1,105 Italian deals in the first nine months of 2026, up 15%, but EUR 35.6 billion in value, down 37%, excluding Recordati and the banks. In private equity, add-ons by portfolio companies made up 56% of deals. The same week the families selling CEA Italia and Jaus to Morato reinvested in the acquiring group, where BeBeez says they will hold 30%, and Teco counted six add-ons in under twelve months. The seller who stays in is increasingly the standard structure.

04 SEARCH FUND 3RD DEAL

Monforte buys IKN, its third deal, and builds a group above EUR 13M in revenue

Today BeBeez reported that Monforte Capital Partners, the search fund run by Simone Botti and Marco Polato, has acquired 100% of IKN, a Milan B2B training and events company with about forty years of history. It is Monforte's third deal in training, after Agenzia Formativa Dante Alighieri and Dinamica Job Academy, and it takes the group above EUR 13 million in revenue. The seller, Francesca Cattoglio, reinvests in Monforte, CEO Luca Passoni stays, and Banco BPM lends alongside the fund's investors.

The same day Onebirdie Capital launched. Guido Pagani raised EUR 520,000 for a search of about 24 months across Lombardy and Emilia-Romagna, with an explicit thesis on the "double challenge of succession and technological transformation", digital and AI included. One Italian search fund is turning into a platform, and a new one writes technology change into its thesis from day one.

BIG PICTURE

The thread this week is the definition behind the number. USD 20 billion of OpenAI revenue depends on what gets counted, and the same discipline applies to a small company: how revenue, EBITDA and the seller's retained stake are defined sets the price more than the headline multiple does. Italian deals this week were smaller and more structured, and the people building them, from funds to searchers, asked the seller to stay in.

When a target hands you its numbers, how much time do you spend on how they were counted? And how much reinvestment are you asking sellers for today to close the gap on price?