by Czar » Fri Jul 24, 2015 10:22 am
Fiat Chrysler has filed papers with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to offer an Initial Public Offering (IPO) of Ferrari stock on the Wall Street Exchange later this year. That means Ferrari will be bought and sold on the big board, like Proctor and Gamble, Ford, AT&T and thousands of other companies. It will mean a cash infusion for Fiat/Ferrari, but is also fraught with peril for Ferrari. One thing about Wall Street is: investors demand profits. If Ferrari can't produce the profits as expected, investments and share prices will drop, possibly crippling the brand. More likely, it will simply morph into more of a "luxury lifestyle" brand than it already is. If racing cannot translate into sales for Ferrari, stock holders will have every right to redirect the activities of the company to insure themselves more profit. I see an interesting clash between a company that has always put racing performance ahead of everything, and stakeholders who hold profit as the only thing that matters. Now, Fiat owns Ferrari because Ferrari could no longer sustain itself as a viable stand alone company (just like Chrysler). It also seems, to me, that Fiat Chrysler would not want to dilute ownership/control over Ferrari if it were pulling its own weight financially. It will be interesting to see how this plays out.