Milan: Fiat Industrial SpA, the truck and tractor manufacturer spun off by carmaker Fiat SpA in 2011, won’t merge with its CNH Global NV unit as planned this year because the European crisis has complicated the talks.
“As we stand now, it is not possible” to complete all the necessary meetings of the special merger committee before the end the year, Fiat Industrial Chairman Sergio Marchionne said today in London. While the debt crisis has made an evaluation of the companies more difficult, the delay won’t change the terms of the deal, he said.
Spurred by economic woes in Europe, Fiat Industrial plans to merge with CNH and move the combined company’s primary listing to New York from Milan. Fiat Industrial’s Iveco truck unit announced plans on July 1 to shut five plants in Europe by the end of 2012 because of the sovereign-debt crisis. German truckmaker MAN SE said today that 2013 will be tougher than this year after orders slowed more than normal last quarter.
There was a target to complete the transaction in 2012, “but it’s pointless to put pressure on the special committee,” Marchionne said at a meeting of the Italian Chamber of Commerce. “Let them work.”
Marchionne, who is targeting 25 billion euros (Dh120 billion, $32.4 billion) in sales for Fiat Industrial this year, wants to create the world’s third-largest capital-goods company in the merger, with a product range spanning Iveco delivery trucks, New Holland harvesters and FPT ship engines.
The Italian manufacturer already holds an 88 per cent stake in Amsterdam-based CNH, which owns New Holland and the Case agricultural- and construction-equipment brand. Fiat Industrial proposed on May 30 that a new company be created in a share exchange with no premium for CNH shareholders.
