Pinifarina cancels contract manufacturing to focus on electric vehicles
By Andrew C., 30 Aug, 2010. 0 Comments
The only remaining contract manufacturer of Italy in activity, Pininfarina, on Tuesday approved a modified industrial plan which calls for the cancellation of contract manufacturing when present productions will cease and focus solely on making electric vehicles.The modified plan emerged before creditor banks lately approved a financial aid for the firm that saved it from a bankruptcy filing.
In an announcement, Pininfarina said it would not seek a new contract manufacturing orders after the present contracts terminate at the close of 2011. Currently, Pininfarina is making the Alfa Romeo Brera coupe and Spider and the Ford Focus coupe-cabriolet in numbers that are about a quarter of what was initially intended. Pininfarina will begin pilot production in 2010 and in 2011 the volume manufacture of the B0, an electric vehicle designed and created in joint venture with French industrial group Bollore. More details after the jump!
The rescue plan will include the Pininfarina family losing control of the firm pioneered in 1930 by Battista Pininfarina, grandfather of the present chairman Paolo Pininfarina and vice-chairman Lorenza Pininfarina. The Pininfarina family will provide 50.6 percent of its shares to creditor banks in trade of the cancelation of 180 million euros of the 597.7 million euro debt of the Pininfarina group. The family will keep a stake of about 4.5 percent of the publicly listed Pininfarina S.p.A. holding firm.
To reduce Pininfarina debts further, the creditor banks will write-off another 70 million euro in debts next spring in exchange of transferring the Pininfarina trademark to a newly created, bank owned firm. Pininfarina said the creditor banks, which will become the chief controlling shareholder since the financial rescue plan has been authorized, would not request for board seats or management alterations. Disaster hit the frim in August when its chairman and chief executive, Andrea Pininfarina, died in a car accident. He was the grandson of the founder, Battista "Pinin" Farina. The firm has designed vehicles for Italy's leading vehicle producer Fiat and Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi points to the family as a "dynasty that helped bring the story of 'made in Italy' to the world."
[source automotivenews]
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