Partial victory for Fiat in the battle to gain total control of Chrysler. The Delaware Court accepted the Italian company's requests on the two most relevant disputes in the context of the case with the Veba workers' fund, a minority shareholder of the Detroit company. One of the points at the heart of the matter was the calculation of Chrysler's debt for the purposes of valuing Veba's stake in the Fiat subsidiary.
The Delaware Court decided that Fiat "has the right to purchase a part of Veba's stake in several tranches at a price to be determined according to a predefined formula", reads a note from Lingotto. Fiat holds 58,5% of Chrysler and can therefore purchase a further 16,6% of Veba at the price determined on the basis of a formula decided in 2009, when Lingotto took over Chrysler.
The Turin-based group "hopes that the few outstanding issues in the dispute may soon be resolved through the investigation requested by the Court and continues to have faith in the fact that even these remaining issues will be resolved in its favour".
The Court also rejected Veba's requests for a ruling without preliminary investigation, including that the union "could not sell its stake in Chrysler at the price resulting from the call option agreement due to the prohibitions contained in the Department of labor's prohibited transaction provisions".
The Turin-based company has already exercised three call options to acquire 3,3% shares, but the transaction was not completed while awaiting the Delaware Court's ruling on the value of the first call. The price that Fiat should pay is around 140 million dollars (half of what the fund is asking), while Lingotto is willing to pay Veba 198 million dollars for the second call and 254,7 million dollars for the third. dollars.
Once the dispute has been filed, Fiat will therefore rise to 68,49% of Chrysler, pending the subsequent calls possible by June 2016, up to 75,1%. Veba, which will keep 24,9%, has asked the SEC, the supervisory body of the American Stock Exchange, for the registration of 16,6%, a preliminary act for a possible listing. Sergio Marchionne's goal is the merger of the two companies by 2014.
