It seems that I might be proven wrong soon. I never thought Chrysler is going to make it to a proper comeback very soon.
But it seems that Fiat, specifically, Sergio Marchionne, CEO of Fiat and Chrysler thinks otherwise. In fact, he’s so convinced of his belief in Chrysler that he’s willing to invest more of Fiat’s money in it.
The Italians reckon they need to increase in raising the stakes in the Auburn Hills automaker by quite a lot.
At the moment the Fiat stake in Chrysler is at 20% but Marchionne wants to use the extra profits they got in this year’s third quarter. The profits Fiat made in the third quarter summed up to around $236 million.
The raise in stakes Fiat wants over at Chrysler is 15% but in order to manage getting that much extra the Italian company will have to gun down three targets.
The three targets Sergio Marchionne will have to attend to are launching the 1.4 liter MultiAir engine, building a car that will be good enough to manage 40 mpg and lastly and most important, increasing Chrysler sales outside the U.S.
With the first two hurdles apparently due to happen by 2011 and the third being relatively achievable Fiat is looking good for getting their 35% stake in Chrysler.
The interesting part of this is the fact that if and once Chrysler is out of the government ownership situation Fiat could actually raise their stake up to 51%.
