I would guess there are no reports in any British newspaper of any shape of colour about the plans for development of the light industrial manufacturing section of Fiat, the Italian car-maker, or more precisely Fiat-Chrysler, the name of the company these days. Which is a pity if so as it should be being reported really, even if I don’t explain it in easy-to-digest terms I’m sure a practised journalised could:
At the moment Fiat-Chrysler has a factory in the Val de Sandro south of Pescara that makes vans. It makes vans that are badged Fiat, Citroen and Peugeot that are all essentially the same but with a slightly different-shaped front and different names on. That way Frenchmen can swear by their favourite national make, for the most part unaware that what they are driving is a Fiat by any other name.
Fiat are proud of the Val de Sandro factory as it is modern and relatively productive, and they want to invest more money into it. To this end they plan to form a joint venture with an American company, Case IH, that makes tractors under various names such as Case, New Holland, and David Brown. The factory at Val de Sandro will then be called Sevel, as it already is in fact, but currently it is owned by Fiat, in future it will be owned the new joint-venture company called Sevel, a separate company from Fiat. PSA (Citroen-Peugeot) also have a financial stake in this.
The new company will be listed on the New York Stock Exchange to raise American money, and the current plan is that the head office will be in the UK. Presumably the UK is country of choice for the head office as there is good access to strong management and IT skills.
That’s very good for the UK isn’t it? Quite a thing to crow about I would have thought. Though I can see that this is a bit complex to explain and even more can I see that those who argue for Britain’s exit from the EU would in effect be arguing for putting this sort of thing in jeopardy, so it is in the interest of newspapers with a tub to thump not to report it. Note that I’m not saying it couldn’t happen with Britain outside the EU, I’m saying that Britain leaving the EU would put such things in jeopardy – in reality no one knows what might happen in the highly unlikely event of Britain ever stepping aside from the EU. But the EU-antis won’t want the jeopardy aspect of their case to be too well known. Jeopardy would be because of uncertainty, and the last thing you want if you are setting up a new automotive business is head-office uncertainty, that will be the main reason why the management are planning to put it somewhere other than Italy.
There is still something of a mountain for the chief exec of Fiat-Chrysler, Sergio Marchionne, to climb, for as you might imagine the unions and a number of politicians in Italy are kicking up a fuss about this. If Berlusconi were to get in as prime minister again - which is not entirely impossible just yet - he would almost certainly block it and insist that all aspects of Fiat remain in Italy, at least in theory, thus giving Sergio Marchionne an even bigger headache, though Sergio, who though Italian was brought up in Canada, is a remarkably laid-back sort of chap, he looks like he might be a schoolteacher from the 1970s, with his open-necked shirt, pullover, and five-bob haircut. He was taken on by the Agnelli family that owns Fiat to prevent it from going bust, and he seems to be making a fair fist of it.
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