The world’s newest auto giant chose a formal name, Fiat Chrysler Automobiles as the Italian automaker took full ownership when it completed the purchase of a large minority stake in Chrysler. A press-release posted on the official website states that newly combined Fiat Chrysler Automobiles is organized with its headquarters in the Netherlands and based in Britain for tax purposes. According to John Elkann, Chairman of Fiat’s Board of directors, these two car makers suggest their unique advantages complementing each other; so, melding the two prominent brands in one name was an obvious decision. The gravitas of these legendary brands should matter most in the competition for the sales market and customers. The next step the car manufacturer is going to take is to launch the shares of the new company on both the New York and Milan stock exchanges. The informed source announced that the initial public offering would be conducted in the near future without specifying the official date. Every Fiat stockholder will get one share of the newly established company per each Fiat’s share they already have in ownership. For your reference, the purchase of a minority stake in Chrysler cost Fiat $4.5 billion in total. Apart from the upbeat news about rebranding and relocating, Fiat reviewed the financial results of 2013 which turned out to be nail-biting. It reported that the net profit for the last year was almost twice lower than analysts expected in their forecasts. Thus, the company was able to raise merely €931 million instead of €1.5 billion predicted by economists. This was caused by the hard Latin American market. The Italian carmaker incurred losses on this market during 2013 owing to the rising operating costs. So, taking into account these figures, Fiat downgraded its profit expectations for 2014 to €3.6-4 billion from €5.2 billion.
