Sovereign wealth finally arrived in Italy yesterday when the Singapore government agreed to invest about €1bn ($1.53bn) in the main investment vehicle of the Benetton family.

The Government of Singapore Investment Corporation (GIC) is the first of a small number of additional partners the family is seeking as part of a global expansion of its operations. The Benettons have already been joined by Goldman Sachs and Mediobanca, the Italian investment bank.

The Benettons, who started their famous clothing empire in the 1960s, are worth about €9bn. About half of that is still in the clothing group and the rest is invested in operations from motorway tolls and travel restaurants to airports and Telecom Italia.

This week, its Autogrill restaurants unit bought the World Duty Free airport shops business from Ferrovial's BAA and bought out its part-owned Aldeasa subsidiary for a combined €990m to become the world's biggest operator of duty-free retail outlets.

GIC's private equity arm is taking 3 per cent of Sintonia, a Benetton holding vehicle, and subscribing to a capital increase that will take its overall stake to 14.3 per cent, the same as Goldman Sachs.

The Benettons will for now still own two-thirds of Sintonia but could reduce that to 51 per cent in the next few months.

The search for partners is the first time the Benettons have substantially diluted their holdings. Overall, Sintonia is doubling its capital base from €4bn to €8bn, and being supplemented by €2bn borrowed from the Royal Bank of Scotland.

The family views the wooing of long-term financial partners as a way to safeguard its fortune through the potential turmoil of generational change.

The Benettons have said they were looking for partners around the globe who would bring knowledge and contacts from their regions as well as financial investment.

Gilberto Benetton, one of four siblings who started the clothing chain, said last year that partners could potentially come from Asia, the Middle East and eastern Europe.

The Benetton investment is another eye-catching move by GIC, which has recently been pumping money into some of the world's largest investment banks affected by the credit crisis.

In December, GIC put $9bn into UBS of Switzerland and later invested $6.9bn in Citigroup.

GIC manages the wealth Singapore has accumulated in foreign currency reserves and says it has "well over" $100bn.