IVECO headed to India? Parent company Exor reportedly in talks with Tata Motors
According to Reuters, holding company Exor is in talks with Tata Motors to sell its share of Iveco Group, although the IDV brand, specializing in defense vehicles, is not included in the negotiations. Italian labor unions are worried about possible employment fallout. Exor hasn't released any comment so far.
Foreword required: there is nothing official at the moment. Only, so to speak, news and press launches that have been chasing each other since the afternoon of Friday, July 18, under the impetus of a Reuters launch. Holding company Exor, which holds a relative majority of Iveco Group shares, is reportedly in talks with Indian automotive giant Tata Motors with a view to a possible sale of Iveco Group, the on-road part resulting from the spin-off of CNH Group earlier this decade. According to press sources, IDV, the brand specializing on the defense sector, itself involved in other negotiations in recent months, would remain out of the negotiations.
As reported by the Italian press, for instance, emissaries from Tata Motors contacted the Agnelli family to begin talking about a transfer of ownership of Iveco Group. At open markets there was an immediate positive reaction to the tam-tam of news, with Iveco Group’s share price rising in the range of 9 percent on the July 18 trading day.
The reactions to the possible negotiations between Iveco Group and Tata
At the same time, however, the reactions of the main trade unions were not long in coming, and they wrote a letter to the Minister Adolfo Urso, expressing concerns about the possible employment fallout. It is difficult, however, to make predictions at this stage: we need to wait for the evolution of the negotiations. IVECO produces the Eurocargo and some special versions of the Daily in Brescia, Norther Nitaly, while Daily commercial vehicles are made at the Suzzara plant (not far from Mantua). FPT, the engine part of the group, relies on production plants in Turin and Foggia in Italy. Iveco Group relies on about 36,000 workers globally, 14,000 of whom employed in Italy.
Founded in 1975, IVECO is the only Italian brand in the industrial vehicle sector. Several times in recent years there has been talk of the possible sale of the brand by its parent Exor. The best-known negotiation is the one that was supposed to lead to a deal with the Chinese FAW in 2021, which was then skipped also due to the intervention of the Italian Government. We will know soon whether this will be the right time. At the moment there has been no comment from Exor.
