The Ferrari IPO was announced about two weeks after last year’s IPO of Fiat Chrysler, and the company’s CEO, Sergio Marchionne, said the plan was to sell about 10% of Ferrari’s shares to the public and to distribute 80% to Fiat Chrysler shareholders. Fiat Chrysler currently owns 90% of Ferrari.
In early June, Chrysler said that the earliest it could execute an IPO was October 13, 2015, the one-year anniversary of Fiat Chrysler’s own IPO on October 12, 2014. The new Ferrari would be spun off completely from the parent company in early 2016.
The high-end business has been very good for Fiat Chrysler. Sales of Ferraris and Maseratis totaled more than 40,000 last year. Marchionne wants to expand the luxury range downward and that led to the retirement last October of Ferrari’s long-time chief, Luca Cordero di Montezemolo.
Marchionne plans to increase production gradually to 10,000 units. Montezemolo wanted to maintain production at around 7,000 to underscore Ferrari’s exclusivity. He had a point: according to British brand research firm Brand Finance, Ferrari last year was named the world’s most powerful brand for the second-year running.
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The Fiat chief sees the market for premium cars widening with Maserati and others now producing cars that are expensive, but not quite at the nose-bleed levels that typify Ferrari. For example, Ferrari’s 2014 California rings in at just under $200,000 for the base model, while the 458 Italia carries a base price of more than $250,000. The Ferrari FF lists for $295,000 and the F12berlinetta coupe has an MSRP of nearly $320,000. That is before customization — and that is where the real money gets spent. Customization gets the credit for the revenue jump at Ferrari under Montezemolo.
UBS Investment Bank, Bank of America Merrill Lynch and Banco Santander are acting as joint bookrunners for the IPO, and UBS is the global coordinator. The new company is applying to trade its common stock on the New York Stock Exchange, but no ticker symbol was provided in Thursday’s announcement.
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