Fiat wants to buy back a 29% stake in Ferrari held by Mediobanca and other banks because it is a strategic asset, Fiat’s chairman has said.
Go deeper with GlobalData
Discover B2B Marketing That Performs
Combine business intelligence and editorial excellence to reach engaged professionals across 36 leading media platforms.
According to Reuters, Italian bank Mediobanca led a group of banks to buy 34% of Ferrari from Fiat for EUR775.2m ($US994m) when the automaker was going through a crisis in 2002.
But Fiat would only be buying back 29% since Mediobanca sold 5% to Mubadala Development Company of the Abu Dhabi government in August, the report noted.
“We want to recover the entire stake that Mediobanca had bought four years ago,” Montezemolo reportedly said in a speech at an event for parts suppliers at Ferrari’s headquarters in Maranello.
“We are still looking at how we’re going to do it,” added Montezemolo, who is also Ferrari’s chairman.
“It is an industrial and a strategic choice,” he said, adding he was expecting 2006 to be a record year for Ferrari in terms of results and volumes.
Fiat already owns 56% of Ferrari, Reuters noted.
The report said Mediobanca itself owns 11.7% of Ferrari and has been looking to sell this after a plan to list the sports car maker on the stock market never materialised. Other banks that own a stake in Ferrari include Commerzbank with 8.5%, ABN AMRO with 7.5%, and Banca Popolare dell’Emilia Romagna with 1.3%.
Financial sources told Reuters earlier this week that Mediobanca could sell its Ferrari stake to Fiat by the end of June, when its put option on the stake expires.
In buying back the stake, Fiat would pay out the same amount that it had received from the banks in 2002, plus interest, Reuters added.
