Distressed investing has become an increasingly important segment within private capital markets, particularly following successive economic shocks and tightening financial conditions. While existing empirical evidence is largely concentrated on the United States, limited research examines how distressed investing operates in continental Europe, and especially within bank-centered economies such as Italy. This thesis investigates the role of private capital funds in resolving corporate financial distress in Italy, adopting a comparative perspective with Western Europe. The study develops a descriptive and comparative research design that replicates the main stages of the distressed investing process — opportunity identification, acquisition, restructuring, and value creation— using firm-level data from AIDA and ORBIS over the period 2019–2024.