Cars and Drivers

Fiat Chrysler Begins Trading in New York

2014 Jeep Cherokee
Courtesy of Jeep
Shares of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles N.V. (NYSE: FCAU) began trading Monday morning on the New York Stock Exchange, opening at $8.89 per American Depositary Receipt (ADR). The primary listing was moved from Milan so that the company may gain access to the deep pockets of Wall Street.

Fiat Chrysler’s tax home is London and it headquarters will be in the Netherlands. Operations will be conducted out of Turin and Detroit.

Chrysler last traded publicly in 2007, when it was owned by Daimler, and it has not traded as a stand-alone company since 1998. Fiat began acquiring shares of Chrysler in 2009 as the U.S. and Canadian governments backed the rescue of the carmaker in the midst of the Great Recession. The Italian automaker ended up with about 59% of Chrysler and a union pension fund owned the rest. Chrysler finally acquired all the Chrysler shares in January of this year and immediately began making plans for a public listing.

CEO Sergio Marchionne aims to spend about $63 billion on a five-year business plan that includes boosting sales of Chrysler’s Jeep brand and bringing back Fiat’s Alfa Romeo luxury brand. Marchionne has said that once New York trading begins, FCA will hit up the bond market for capital. He has rejected the idea of issuing more stock, at least in the near term.

The company’s not-so-secret weapon to achieve Marchionne’s goal is Jeep, which is on track to sell a million units worldwide this year. The fastest-growing market for Jeep is China, where the government last month fined the company $5.2 million in an anti-monopoly investigation that has hit automakers, tech companies and others.

Shares of Fiat Chrysler hit a peak of $9.55 shortly after the opening bell and were trading at the opening price of $8.89 after hitting a low of $8.84. Marchionne and the company’s chairman are scheduled to ring the closing bell at the end of Monday’s trading session.

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