Moody's cuts the rating, the stock falls to Piazza Affari, and the managing director Sergio Marchionne who rises from Brussels: "The decision was predictable but I don't agree with it". Very hard day for Fiat therefore, after the US rating agency has downgraded the score of Lingotto at Ba3, also indicating a negative outlook.
To be precise, Moody's has communicated that it has downgraded Fiat's corporate family and probability of default ratings to Ba3 from Ba2, with a negative outlook, due to the bad conditions of the Italian car market. And the stock on the Stock Exchange immediately felt the blow, already in the morning and until the afternoon, when losses of 0,5% were still recorded at 4,262 euros per share, compared to 4,24 (the negative peak was also reached at 4,166 ).
Sergio Marchionne then argued, speaking before the EU Commission as president of Acea, the association of European car manufacturers, against the European Union itself: “He needs to stop signing free trade agreements. This is not the time to embrace free trade, really not."
According to the Italian-Canadian managing director, the EU “must be consistent in its objectives. Before signing these agreements the European Commission must allow the European car industry to structure itself and prepare for this market opening and finance their own structural adjustment, but they must be allowed to do so, to realign their interests”. Agreements, those to which Marchionne alludes, such as the one signed with Korea and which the EU wants to negotiate with Japan.
The manager is even back on problem of production overcapacity in the automotive sector, demonstrated by the fact that there are 3 million unsold cars in Europe.
