Rumorpile: Alfa Romeo Part Of A Deal With Fiat and Audi? :Comments

[William Maley]

By William Maley

Staff Writer - CheersandGears.com

April 1, 2013

Alfa Romeo is reportedly a part of a deal that is currently under negotiations between Fiat and Audi. Sources close to the situation tell Wards Auto the deal involves Alfa Romeo and Fiat’s Pomigliano assembly plant which currently makes the Fiat Panda. If the deal was to go through, this would mark the return of Alfa Romeo production under Audi.

Also on the table is Fiat’s Magneti Marelli parts unit. Fiat CEO Sergio Marchionne has mentioned before that he would be willing to let go of its parts arm in order to raise cash. Audi has gone on the record saying that it would like acquire a components manufacturer and establish a new R&D arm in Italy, where it now has a considerable stake thanks to Lamborghini and Ducati.

When asked for comment, both Fiat and Audi declined to.

Source: Wards Auto

William Maley is a staff writer for Cheers & Gears. He can be reached at [email protected] or you can follow him on twitter at @realmudmonster.

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[G. David Felt]

Why does this smell of Musical Chairs of the ubber Rich working to hide assets and money all while saying they are doing their best to save jobs and raise capital? This also tends to tell me that if the Alfa does return to the US, it will have shortcuts that will hinder it from surviving long and bring back the horror stories of their last time here in the US.

This deal just tends to raise red flags for me about the true nature of what is really going on here when you have such a financial mess going on in Europe.

[Drew Dowdell]

Audi has been after Alfa for a few years now.. this gets them closer to that goal.

[G. David Felt]

How much Debt can these companies really handle and the bank system? The current financial mess of Europe is going to still explode even bigger as we see the Euro Union about to fail. Cypress just proves that having your cake and eat it too is not a reality and the people are not going to absorb the losses nor will the rich or the Gov.

Eventually this will blow up and could take down VW/Audi.

Right now the unions and the promise of jobs is killing the ability for businesses to survive and make the real cuts in production capacity.

One company off loads productions capacity and it becomes a mess for another and no real gain is made. I see no benefit to Audi to get production capacity for Alfa when they already have plenty in place.

[Drew Dowdell]

At least from this post... your theories surrounding Cyprus is a bit off....

Audi isn't after production capacity... they're after Alfa Romeo.

[G. David Felt]

Cyprus is a poor example, but one that is current in the minds of people on how badly debt is being handled.

According to the full story, there is Fiats assembly plants to go with the parts plant and the Alfa name/product. So no matter how one looks at this, there is change coming and Fiat is in a bind to try and grasp 100% of Chrysler from the Union to get the freedom to do what it wants with Chrysler in the US. I see major change coming and I do not see the powerful Italian Unions willing to give up anything.

[Drew Dowdell]

Eh... Cyprus banks were involved in Russian money laundering.... their issues are a bit different than the rest of the EU.

[G. David Felt]

Interesting Drew, I guess I missed that in my reading as I did not know that. Sucks to be them as they say.

Still my gut tells me this will not really work out well for any company.

[Blake Noble]

We've been hearing this, off and on, for some time now. I have a feeling someone might be crying wolf. Considering what Fiat has planned for Alfa, and that VW can barely manage essentially what is its own Alfa Romeo — a Spanish brand known as SEAT — pardon me if I have to say something here smells a little funny.

Edited April 2, 2013 by black-knight

[G. David Felt]

I wonder if Fiat is doing this to get concessions from the over powered Unions.