Might Chrysler House in downtown Detroit be the new headquarters for Fiat-Chrysler?
The evolution of what will be Fiat-Chrysler continues as CEO Sergio Marchionne will tell the Fiat SpA board that the New York Stock Exchange should be the primary market for the newly merged company’s stock: moving it further away from Italy, Fiat’s ancestral home.
In a meeting expected to take place next week, Marchionne is expected to put forth a series of recommendations to the board. In addition to listing on the NYSE, he’s likely to recommend the company’s headquarters be located in the U.S. as well as having a location in the U.K. for tax purposes.
Listing on the NYSE is important because it puts the company within view of potential borrowing partners, Marchionne said previously. This could be important as he continues to push Fiat from a regional European automaker to now Fiat-Chrysler, a global player of scale that can compete with bigger makers like Volkswagen AG, General Motors and Toyota.
The new company is the world’s seventh-largest automaker, he said.
During the meeting on Jan. 29, he’s also going to suggest the new name for the company have both Fiat and Chrysler in it. The new company will also be listed on a secondary market, perhaps Milan, according to Bloomberg. A three-year plan for the new automaker will be put forth in May.
Much of the company’s new structure will be based off what Marchionne did with Fiat’s truck and tractor affiliate, CNH Industrial, which is based in Amsterdam. He’s also made plenty of moves that imply the Canadian-educated Marchionne isn’t loyal to Italy.
(Chrysler retirees get security out of Fiat-VEBA deal. For more, Click Here.)
In terms of where the headquarters will be, Marchionne suggested that, “Talking about headquarters is almost an anachronistic term in the way multinational corporations operate today,” during an appearance at the North American International Auto Show last week.
“Power travels,” he added, though he acknowledged Detroit is “especially relevant” because of the increasingly important role it plays in the alliance now.
(Click Here to get the details on Fiat’s takeover of Chrysler.)
All these decisions are now in play because Fiat finally gained full control of Chrysler earlier this week after buying the remaining 41.5% of the company from the UAW’s employee benefit trust or VEBA for $4.35 billion. The combination creates the world’s seventh-largest auto manufacturer, according to Marchionne.