On October 4th, a 145-year-old start-up will make its debut on the Milan Stock Exchange. It is Pirelli that returns to listing with a new look of a “pure consumer tire company” all focused on high value of tyres, where the group led by Marco Tronchetti Provera boasts shares of the absolute world leader. A result achieved through strong investments in technology (7% of turnover in the specific high-end sector, on average 5% of the total) which have attracted the Chinese capital of ChemChina, without distorting the historical DNA and the entrepreneurial culture of the company , thanks to specific governance arrangements. With the result that only the task of managing Pirelli continues to be the prerogative of the current Italian management and Bicocca is the heart andheadquarter of the group, while, new for the Beijing state holdings, it is the first IPO on the open market in which a Chinese industrial giant participates, accepting the required best practices. Not just a novelty in the international financial landscape, which will also lead to a reduction in ChemChina's share below the absolute majority. The leadership of Tronchetti Provera remains central, a key role also in the designation of his successor when he will leave the positions of operational vice president and managing director in 2020.
“Leading a group like Pirelli is not easy – said Tronchetti touching on this issue in Monday's press conference at the Bicocca degli Arcimboldi – but with the team by my side it becomes so. The name? It's always inside an envelope, it's been like this for years and I admit that I've often changed it”.
Turnover at the top is one of the most delicate moments for a company. Tronchetti himself, called to command Pirelli during the stormy years of the Continental operation, knows something about it, an unfortunate adventure that had drained Bicocca's balance sheet. Almost three decades have passed since then. Pirelli was not only tires but also cables and many rubber products. Continental had been Leopoldo Pirelli's last attempt to make the leap in size. Hard years faced by Tronchetti in Pirelli, settling the accounts without ever losing the innate vocation of a company open to the world and to technological innovation.
And so it was also in the difficult moments following the acquisition of Telecom Italia. And it is precisely in the early years of the new millennium that Bicocca decides to focus more and more on high value tyres, abandoning the rest and exiting Telecom. A strategic choice – soon accompanied and strengthened by the media also by the exclusive supply of tires for the Formula One racing cars – which would have changed skin up to redefining the mission of today's Pirelli, a top global producer coveted by the major car manufacturers, a name that with Ferrari it will be the most attractive showcase of the new brand index that the Italian Stock Exchange is about to launch.
