On 13 March 2000, hailed by the international economic press as a turning point for the European auto industry, the alliance between General Motors and Fiat was signed, which provided for the Americans to subscribe for a 20% stake in Fiat Auto in exchange of Fiat's entry into GM's capital with a stake of approximately 5,1%, for a value of 2,4 billion dollars, and such as to make it its first private shareholder.
From an industrial point of view, the agreement also envisaged the creation of two 2/XNUMX joint ventures, one in the purchasing of materials (GM-Fiat Purchasing) and the other in the production of engines and gearboxes (Fiat-GM Powertrain), with the aim of seizing the advantages in the common use of components and in the reduction of costs, benefits quantified by partners up to XNUMX billion dollars a year.
Powertrain, based in Turin, will consist of four Fiat plants in Italy and one in Poland and three GM-Opel plants in Germany and one GM in Hungary, while Purchasing will be headquartered at the historic Opel headquarters in Russelsheim .
For GM, the alliance was part of a process aimed at growing its automotive business worldwide, strengthening its position in Europe and South America, the geographical areas affected by the two joint ventures, while for Fiat, the alliance represented the an attempt to integrate its forces with a leader in the automotive industry, trying to accelerate a return to profitability, which has been absent from Fiat Auto's accounts for too long, with structural interventions and cost reductions.
The crux of the contractual agreement, however, was the recognition in favor of Fiat of the option right (the "put") to transfer the remaining 80% of Fiat Auto to GM starting from the fourth year and within the next five of the alliance. With this agreement, Fiat once again confirmed that its point of reference was the United States, as indeed it had always been throughout its history.
In fact, already at the beginning of the 900s Fiat, first among European companies, had established itself in the States with an automobile plant in Poughkeepsie, in the state of New York, which remained in business until the outbreak of the Second World War (in the early 10s 'XNUMX the taxis that circulated in New York were almost exclusively Fiat and not Ford).
In the XNUMXs and XNUMXs, and again in the XNUMXs, Fiat engineers went to the Ford plants in Detroit to study mass production and the Taylorist-Fordist work organization to be applied to the Lingotto and Mirafiori plants (as opposed to today with the Americans who come to Pomigliano or Cassino to learn the best practices of the WCM).
Then, in the mid-eighties, the unsuccessful attempt to buy Ford Europe, while in the following years, the acquisitions of American companies in the agricultural machinery sector, such as New Holland and Case , or those tools like the Pico.
However, the “American dream” did not come true with General Motors but with Chrysler ten years later: the alliance between Fiat and GM broke down after five years of misunderstandings both on an industrial level and on a financial and economic level.
While the two joint ventures found it enormously difficult to integrate (with the Italian companies committed to containing the hegemonic attempts of their German counterparts), the results of Fiat Auto and Opel, GM's European subsidiary, became less and less flattering.
If Opel's losses could be covered in those years by the positive performance of the American parent company, Fiat, in May 2002, had to stipulate a loan of 3 billion euros (the so-called "convertendo") with a pool of four banks, and, in December of the same year, signing a program agreement with the Government which envisaged, for Fiat Auto, the state of declaration of company crisis, with recourse to the extraordinary redundancy fund and the suspension from work of 7500 workers.
These were critical years also for Fiat's top management: in the space of four years, from 2000 to 2004, five managing directors succeeded each other in the Parent Company and, in the same period, four in Fiat Auto.
Even on the shareholdings front, relations deteriorate quickly: within two years GM devalues its stake in Fiat Auto from 2,4 billion to 200 million dollars, while Fiat sells its stake in GM to Merryll Lynch for $1,16 billion.
However, the first real break occurred in February 2003, when a 5 billion euro capital increase was announced by Fiat Auto in which GM was supposed to participate with one billion.
The American company not only declares that it does not want to subscribe to the capital increase, but begins to express doubts about the real possibility of Fiat to exercise the contractual "put" clause, i.e. Fiat's right to transfer Fiat Auto to GM, without ifs and buts, under the conditions already agreed upon in the initial agreement starting from 24 January 2004, a date then postponed, with an agreement between the parties, to 2 February 2005.
In September 2004, however, Fiat communicated that there will be no further postponement on the exercise of the "put". A tough negotiation will begin with the Americans committed to avoiding the forced takeover of Fiat Auto and Fiat determined not to withdraw from its position to exercise the "put".
It was a kind of poker game. The Americans just had to go and see if Fiat was bluffing or not in the declared willingness to exercise the "put" clause, but they didn't want to take the risk and at the last minute, before the deadline and in the face of a threatened legal action by Fiat intent on asserting their rights, in February 2005 they gave in and reached the signing of an onerous agreement, in order not to take over Fiat Auto.
To renounce the exercise of the "put" and put an end to the alliance, GM paid Fiat 1,5 billion euros in cash and returned the shareholding it had in Fiat Auto. At the same time, the two industrial joint ventures were also dissolved.
In this way GM was able to leave an alliance that had proved economically unsustainable, while Fiat regained the room to maneuver to redefine its future. In the following years the two companies had completely different developments.
While the US government rescued General Motors from bankruptcy in 2009, Fiat, realizing its "American dream", acquired Chrysler and, like FCA, became one of the global automotive players.
Conversely, GM, if the PSA-GM Europe operation and the probable divestment of its production in Korea were to conclude, from being the world leader in the car until a few years ago, would now become a regional company confined only to the American market.
