Italdesign, 4-5 companies interested in the historic Italian car design company

An operation whose contours have yet to be delineated, but which starts from two fixed points: the willingness of Audi-Volkswagen to sell the Italian asset Italdesign - a historic company in the Engineering and Design sector for the Italian car - and the indication to close the process by the autumn, by the end of the year at the latest. This is what emerged during the meeting between the company's top management and the unions at the headquarters of the Industrial Union of Turin.

The CEO of Italdesign, Antonio Casu, and the company's management have outlined the contours of the operation, setting out a number of points, starting with the Group's desire not to sell to a competing group in the automotive sector or to an investment fund. It is therefore difficult to understand who could be potentially interested in acquiring such a qualified asset, if not American or Chinese engineering companies or players from sectors other than the automotive one.

There are currently four to five interested parties in Italdesign, reports Fiom of Turin. Among other things, the trade unions report, the hypothesis of changing industrial competences has not been excluded by Italdesign's top management, just as the possibility of remaining with the Volkswagen Group in the face of a reorganisation such as those initiated by the German company in other business branches has not been ruled out.

The company, a historical reality of Italian design, employs 1,300 people in total, 1,100 at the headquarters in Moncalieri, with at least 1,800 workers in the allied industries, as explained by Fim-Cisl. At the moment a pre-due diligence phase is underway, which would be aimed at giving potential partners - an alternative and privileged choice to the sale, with the possibility for Audi to remain in the majority - a thorough evaluation of the company. 'There has been no talk of employment, for now we are talking about industrial prospects, it is not a company in crisis that needs to reduce personnel,' adds Giammi Mannori of the Fiom of Turin.

The final decision on the future of Italdesign, however, will be up to the Group's top management in Ingolstadt, Germany. For Rocco Cutrì, secretary of the Fim Cisl of Turin, "it is more necessary than ever to consider that in order to preserve the productive fabric of an area you cannot be distracted and you cannot arrive late. Today we are trying to protect and defend this reality in the knowledge that the final decisions will be taken in Germany. A multinational logic applied to a reality of territorial excellence that encompasses a know-how, an ability to innovate and an originality recognised in the way, risks being dispersed, impoverished simply to balance the accounts of the parent company". For Italdesign, adds Cutrì, 'we hope for an Italian solution.