The fireworks over the car went off before the board of directors even concluded Intesa Sanpaolo which has given the green light to the loan from 6,3 billion euros to Fiat Chrysler guaranteed by Sace at 80%. But I stretch it in Piazza Affari di FCA +3,4% close to 8 euros, they are not enough to ensure pole position for the Agnelli team, overtaken by the performance of the French car: Peugeot gains 5,6%, does the same Renault, pending the loan from the government, which is a 15% shareholder, but also from decisions coming from Nissan headquarters which between Wednesday and Thursday will set the new limits of the Franco-Japanese alliance which will no longer lead to a merger, as Carlos Ghosn dreamed, but will limit itself to an industrial alliance.
But the attention of financial operators is focused on Etaples, an industrial town in the Pas-de Calais overlooking the Channel chosen by Emmanuel Macron to illustrate the Valeo workshops the industrial plan for the French car, a project that involves us closely just a few months after the merger between FCA and PSA. As well as for the role that Luca De Meo, ex Fiat, is preparing to take over the leadership of Renault from the first of July. To emphasize the atmosphere of expectation that surrounds the world on four wheels after the collapse in sales in April is also the flight of Brembo +7,4% or of Valeo +8% but also, paradoxically, the calm that surrounds Ferrari -0,44% rather than the big names in German cars: BMW +0,02%, Daimler and Volkswagen +1%.
In short, they are the ones to move the companies that will benefit from the next government incentives to deal with the liquidity crisis that threatens the sector (even if FCA still counts on a buffer of 18 billion) and, no less important, to feed the post-Covid-19 strategies, which it cannot fail to involve the components, the heart of a sector which, speaking of the Italian system, is worth 10% of GDP, employing over one million people (over 400 in the FCA supply chain) with an annual turnover, to limit ourselves to components of over 20 billion destined a large part to German customers, strongly linked to the fate of the Po Valley Motor Valley.
Hence the reasons for the obvious green light from Banca Intesa for the loan, already agreed between the parties, which will now have to pass to Sace (controlled by the CDP) and then land on the Ministry of Economy which will have to issue a decree to formalize the deed. Today there will certainly be no talk of the extraordinary coupon that FCA intends to pay to the parent company Exor, according to the terms of an agreement with PSA "which is written in stone" as reiterated John Elkann.
The French partner, who will be responsible for the operational leadership of the alliance (the fourth in the world in terms of production volumes) is meanwhile preparing to receive the incoming message from Macron. The French president has provided for a series of incentives starting with the increase in the premium on scrapping, now equal to 3 euros for cars registered before 2006. The premium, unlike what was announced, will not be limited to the purchase of a car electric but will also concern the "cleaner and more efficient" traditional engines and will also concern "almost new" cars, a way to broaden the audience of interested parties or lend a hand to dealers, overwhelmed by second-hand stocks. But the provision does not lack incentives for research, both on the digital front and on the autonomous car. But there is a precise constraint: Paris, which has given up on the idea of closing the Flins plant, has established that any new investment in the electric or hydrogen car, as well as in the development of batteries, will have to be made on French soil. And this of course also applies to PSA. Unless Italy contributes her part.
