As soon as you enter Italdesign’s headquarters in northern Italy, you encounter automotive history. Immediately in the entrance area, visitors come across the “DeLorean DMC-12” with its emblematic gullwing doors, a car that was designed in the early 1980s by designer and company founder Giorgetto Giugiaro and achieved Hollywood fame in the classic film “Back to the Future”. The design house in the Turin suburb of Moncalieri has been majority owned by Audi for around a decade and a half, and the subsidiary of the Volkswagen Group has held all shares for ten years. But now the Germans want to separate from Italdesign again, also because of their own financial difficulties. Management in Italy is largely keeping a low profile, but employees are speaking out. “The employees have felt part of the VW Group for a long time, but now they are disappointed with this treatment,” reports Gianni Mannori from the Fiom union to the F.A.Z. Italdesign, with its around 1,300 employees, in no way sees itself as a crisis case, on the contrary. With record sales of around 330 million euros, a net profit of around 30 million euros fell last year. The company works at locations in Italy, Germany, Spain, USA and China. Industrial sectors beyond automobile manufacturing have recently been growth areas. And yet it has now become known that VW is examining the sale of the studio, possibly to an Indian-American investor or to an Italian consortium that was formed just a few days ago. The crisis-plagued VW Group wants to become leaner and is therefore getting rid of peripheral businesses, including companies like the large engine manufacturer Everellence, for which the sales process is likely to begin soon. A unit for autonomous driving and the Powerco battery division could also take new co-owners on board. Officially, it is said that VW “actively” manages its investments and strives for the “optimal ownership structures”. The statements about Italdesign remain vague. Audi only let it be known that they are continually reviewing the strategic direction of the investment portfolio – they do not comment on speculation.Origin of many VW models in ItalyItal design is closely linked to the history of VW. When the company’s model range appeared increasingly outdated at the end of the 1960s and the discussion about successor projects for the previously successful Beetle model was not making any real progress, the then design star Giugiaro was called in. Shortly before, he had set up his own business with the company Italdesign, and now he helped with the rapid development of a new mid-range model. The first VW Passat with hatchback was derived from the then Audi 80 with front-wheel drive on the same technical basis. Giugiaro later designed the first version of the successful Golf model. He also attributes the shapes of various vehicles from the Seat brand as well as other group models. In 2010, the Germans took over around 90 percent of Giugiaro’s design house, which had around 800 employees at the time, and then the remaining ten percent in 2015. The purchase price was not published at the time. When it went public in 1999, Italdesign was valued at 350 million euros; when the company was taken off the stock exchange a few years later, the value was 215 million euros. When selling Italdesign to the VW Group, Giugiaro was also keen to save jobs in his own company, while the other design houses in Turin were experiencing a decline. The Indian-American group UST Global is now considered a promising takeover candidate. It was recently said that he had completed the due diligence and made an offer for the majority of the shares. But in the past few days, an additional group from Italy has positioned itself: This includes the industrial company Gruppo Adler, which is also a medium-sized automotive supplier with sales of more than 2 billion euros. In addition, the state investment company CDP wants to support the consortium. This makes it clear to whom the sympathies of Giorgia Meloni’s government belong: Italdesign should remain Italian. Several former top Italian managers from manufacturers such as Ferrari, Fiat and Magneti Marelli also want to take part. The consortium is said to already have a loan of 50 million euros from Italian banks. However, time is of the essence. Because of the uncertainty, around 60 engineers are said to have already left Italdesign. “It’s important now that Volkswagen doesn’t make any hasty decisions,” demands trade unionist Mannori. The employee representatives criticize the bidder UST for having no experience in the automotive sector, but for focusing primarily on consulting for digital transformation. There are fears that capacity in Italy will be reduced.More on the topicThe Italian consortium, on the other hand, is very late; The unions sounded the first alarm bells about the sale by VW in May. The Italian bidders want to open Italdesign more to other customers, such as the Stellantis Group, and at the same time conquer new industrial sectors. Whether VW would approve of Italdesign’s stronger collaboration with its rival Stellantis is, of course, another matter. Italdesign makes 70 percent of its sales in Germany, only 11 percent in Italy. The VW management, that much is clear, wants to make rapid progress. It was recently said that there could be clarity this year.
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