Pirelli almost Chinese
Italian industrial icon to change hands, delist from Milan Stock ExchangeTyre and rubber giant Pirelli is about to delist after 90 years as one of the major players on the Italian Stock Exchange.
An offshoot of Chinese industrial giant ChemChina has announced it has acquired 87 per cent of Pirelli — just three per cent shy of the legal level required to take the company private.
It plans to restructure the tyre-maker, splitting its profitable motorsport and car-tyre divisions into a separate company to be relisted on the stock exchange as early as next year.
The rest of the Pirelli’s industrial operations will be rolled in to ChemChina’s own tyre-making operation, Aeolus.
The move has drawn outcry in Italy, especially when it became known that ChemChina’s Marco Polo Industrial Holding operation that is buying Pirelli is also part-owned by Pirelli CEO Marco Tronchetti.
While 65 per cent of Marco Polo is owned by ChemChina, the rest is split between Tronchetti personally and Russia’s Rosneft.
Marco Polo’s offer of €15 a share for Pirelli stock has been extended to October 27 to allow it to mop up the remaining shares. It’s a price that values Pirelli at €7.4 billion.
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