Lydius Operations Industrial Advisory & Operations Turnaround
ITENFRESDE

Industrial advisory for manufacturing companies

A manufacturing company is judged by its shop floor and its balance sheet, read together.

Lydius works for owners, investors and groups who have to make a decision about a manufacturing company: turn it around, structure it, buy it or sell it. We bring an independent assessment of organisation, production, costs and technology, made by people who have run shop floors, suppliers and budgets first hand, and we turn it into a plan that can be executed.

8+ countriesof field work across Europe, Asia, Africa and America
18 yearsin industry, from the shop floor to technical management
Andrea Cardellino in front of the battery rack of an energy storage system
Andrea Cardellino at Intersolar, in front of the battery rack of a BESS energy storage system. All photographs on this site are our own, no stock images.

Services

Four services, almost always starting from a diagnosis

We almost always propose starting with a diagnosis: it costs little, takes a few weeks and shows clearly whether, and where, it is worth going further. Those who already have a transaction under way can come in through due diligence. Nobody comes in through a corporate transaction without first having seen the numbers.

Industrial diagnosis

For the owner who senses something is not adding up

A complete reading of organisation, production flows, real product costs, systems and data, together with the financial statements. It ends with a ninety-day plan and a clear recommendation on the next steps.

Duration
4 to 8 weeks
Fee
Fixed fee, based on deliverables

Fractional executive

External CTO, COO or sales director

A part-time executive with agreed objectives and indicators, two to four days a month. For companies that cannot or do not yet want to hire a full-time executive, and for subsidiaries the parent company wants to put back on course.

Duration
6 to 12 months, renewable
Fee
Monthly retainer

Technical and operational due diligence

For those buying, investing or financing

Independent assessment of the technology, know-how, production capacity, supply chain, single points of failure and hidden investments of a target company. A written opinion, with a go/no-go judgement and the points to raise in negotiation.

Duration
2 to 4 weeks
Fee
Fixed fee

Corporate transactions

For those selling, buying or handing over

Preparing the company for sale, industrial buy-side support, post-acquisition integration, turnaround plans. We work alongside the financial advisor and the lawyers, bringing the part that is usually missing: the industrial one.

Duration
6 to 24 months
Fee
Monthly retainer

Method

Our terms of engagement

We do not promise results and we do not showcase solved cases. We sell a method, independent judgement and the direct experience of those who apply it. We put these terms in writing before the first meeting.

01

Numbers first, opinions second

Every engagement starts with the financial statements, product costs and production data. Interviews are there to explain the numbers, not to replace them.

02

Fees tied to deliverables

We work on a fixed fee or a retainer, with an advance at the start and the balance on delivery. As a rule we do not tie our fee to the closing of a transaction, because our opinion must not depend on the closing.

03

No permanent presence

We work on agreed days: on site to see departments, people and data, remotely for analysis and documents.

04

Knowledge stays in the company

Documents, models and decisions stay with the client. Every engagement has a planned end date and is not renewed out of inertia.

05

Private companies only

We work with private companies and investors. We do not take part in public tenders and do not use institutional or political introductions.

06

One person is accountable

Whoever signs the proposal is accountable for the work, from start to delivery. The professionals we involve in individual engagements work under our direction and our responsibility.

Our method in detail: diagnostic, due diligence, sale, first hundred days
Laser marking cell in a production department

Who we serve

For owners, investors and groups

We work with manufacturing companies in north-west Italy with revenues between 10 and 100 million euros: mechanical engineering, special machinery and automation, components, textile machinery, plant engineering, structured contract manufacturing.

Welded steel structure in a workshop

The owner

The company is growing but margins are falling, or everything still goes through a single desk. You need an outside view before hiring, investing or selling, and someone who stays alongside you while things change.

Electronic control board of a machine

The investor

There is a target on the table and the financial numbers are not enough. You need to understand whether the technology, the know-how and the production capacity can support the plan, and what integrating it will really cost.

Numerical control panel of a machine tool

The group

A subsidiary or branch needs technical or operational direction, and the parent company is far away. You need an outside figure who reports to the group and works with local management, without adding an executive to the payroll.

About us

Two partners, outside professionals on individual engagements

Lydius Operations S.r.l. was incorporated in November 2026, with its registered office in Milan, to separate the industrial advisory business from the partners' other activities.

Andrea Cardellino

Chairman and legal representative

Aerospace engineer, Politecnico di Torino, with a thesis at Thales Alenia Space. Eighteen years in industry, starting as a lathe and milling machine operator and as a designer at established Italian manufacturing companies; then project engineering in chemical plants and aerospace systems, seven years of project management for automotive OEMs, and the technical management of the Italian subsidiary of a special machinery group. He has worked abroad on numerous assignments and speaks fluent Italian, English, French and Spanish.

Since 2024 he has been external strategic advisor and fractional CTO of a textile machinery manufacturer in the Swiss Jakob Müller group, where he has worked on the transformation programme, technical due diligence on acquisitions and intellectual property, and the insourcing of production from a subsidiary.

He has significant entrepreneurial experience as co-founder of C+P Energy Solutions S.r.l., which under his leadership has generated over 700,000 euros in cumulative revenue, including the current year to date.

LinkedIn profile

Desy Poma

Board member

Industrial technologist with fifteen years of overall experience in industry: a long career in automotive operations, then process technologist in the food industry. Founding partner with a fifty per cent stake.

She is co-founder and Sales Director of C+P Energy Solutions S.r.l., a company with several business lines, including business consulting under the CardellinoPoma Corporate Advisors brand. At C+P she created and built from the start the SolarCleano business, the Italian distribution of autonomous cleaning robots for photovoltaic plants.

LinkedIn profile

Insights

Latest articles

Industry, corporate transactions and due diligence, written by people who work on the shop floor. All insights

Contact

A first forty-five-minute meeting

We bring a first reading of your company based on public data, with no commitment. If we see grounds for working together we say so, and ask for the documents needed to make a proposal. If we do not, we say so straight away.

Write to us