Topic: CARS - on November 8, 2011 at 7:17:00 PM CET
Fiat - Arrivederci, Italia?
DUTY, history, and responsibility are what keep Fiat, Italy’s biggest private-sector employer, based at home. Running counter to such fine notions, said the carmaker’s boss, Sergio Marchionne, earlier this year, is Fiat’s need to make decisions “rationally”. It has lost money in Italy for years. It expects things to get worse as sales slump at home. Small wonder that the country regularly goes into hysteria over whether Fiat will stay.
Its takeover of Chrysler, an American carmaker, is one reason to worry. Fiat (whose chairman, John Elkann, is a director of The Economist’s parent company) has not decided whether the combined group’s headquarters will be in Turin or Detroit. That may involve little more than a plaque on the wall, as the company argues. But Fiat’s manufacturing presence in Italy is under threat too. Despite earning two-thirds of its revenues abroad, it still has almost half its employees and 40% of its plants in Italy. Mr Marchionne has repeatedly threatened to shutter Italian capacity if he cannot make it productive.
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