Fiat to Spin off Ferrari

IMO this is a short sighted, short term decision and could be bad news for Ferrari in the long run...it's really hard for small volume car manufacturers to remain independent.

it also makes them a great hostile takeover target....

 

+1 - we've seen this with SO MANY niche / luxury brands in the past 5 years.

 

It seems only 10% is being offered.
The rest of FCA shares are being [equally] distributed amongst their existing shareholders. That's how I read it.

 

I would think there are a couple of conglomerates just salivating at the chance to take over Ferrari once Fiat screws this one up.

 

Great way for VW to get in to Maranello.

Or for Piero to raise capital on his own. I would speculate that if someone / consortium came to Fiat with a purchase price of $10B they would look at seriously.

 

Subscribed. I want to read some opinions here, curious of how big a deal this is if at all.

 

10% hardly seems a huge amount in respect of a public offering, take Agenlli's 30%, Piero's 10% and you already have 40%, other current minor shareholders and you can see the outside offering isn't going to be able to exert too much control.

That's my understanding at least.

 

Now we know the real reason for Luca's departure. The dispute within the FIAT Board was not over the Scuderia's lackluster last few years in F1 nor even about the increase in Ferrari annual production, though the latter is probably linked to the Ferrari IPO. It was about the very basic business decision to spin off Ferrari as an independent Company to raise cash for FIAT's business plan (estimates are at US$60 billion). Something we understand that Luca unalterably opposed.

 

yep.

 

Irony Enzo split from Alfa and now the company he started is being used to rescue Alfa, a totally pointless task in my opinion the 4C is fantastic but the rest of the range has nothing to recommend it at all. One needs to look back years to find a high volume Alfa seller.

What they need is a range of cars with 4C brilliance but buyers wont buy them irrespective how brilliant they are.

Sad but true.

 

It's all part of Sergio's plan to get the most $$$$ out of Ferrari before he retires.

What do you expect from an accountant?

Someday we will look back and say the second golden age of Ferrari was under LDM before the bean counters ripped it to shreds.

 

why wait for some day? we can and should say it today

 

I think some would disagree with you, including a custom F car maker here.

 

Will Fiat still advertise on the F1 cars?

 

I am not joking here.... I would not be surprised if you see a Chrysler pentagon on a Ferrari F1 car in the near future.

 

This is a leveraged spinoff.

The problem here from the perspective of Ferrari owners is the bond offering. The proceeds of the bond offering will go to Fiat (that is how it is raising most of the $$ that it wants) and Ferrari will be left paying the interest on the bonds. So instead of investing money in racing and R&D, Ferrari will be paying interest on a loan for the benefit of Fiat. Very bad news. Easy to understand why Luca took a walk.

 

Yep...just waiting for the "Ray-um" with a cavallino on the tailgate.

 

well there is some precedent...
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Of course. The F1 rationale for LdM's departure was just a distraction. Ferrari is now FIAT's piggy bank, its abused home equity line, if you will.....

 

This is sad. I miss LdM...

 

Oh jeez... Speechless...

 

+1 - that was always just blowing smoke up our asses, like we're stupid. They already axed Domenicali for this reason, LdM made it seem like he left before he was forced out, but really, he was forced out. Little doubt in my mind about this.

Guys, let's not all have the same kneejerk reaction we did when we found out LdM was leaving and Mr. Sweaters was taking over the ship. We can't be alarmist about this, lets all just see how it plays out.

It's not like ANY of us have the power to do anything about this. Our only power lies in our ability to buy the cars.