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Ferrari IPO documents filed, floatation expected early 2016

Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (FCA) has officially submitted the first set of IPO (initial public offering) documents for Ferrari, a process which will see the supercar maker spun off from the Italian-American auto manufacturer next year.


Under the plan outlined to the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), FCA will list 10 percent of Ferrari's stock on the New York Stock Exchange in early 2016.

At present FCA owns 90 percent of Ferrari, with the remainder held by Piero Ferrari, the son of founder Enzo Ferrari. Piero has said that he will hold on to his 10 percent shareholding. The remaining 80 percent of Ferrari that FCA currently controls will be distributed to Fiat Chrysler's shareholders.

Like FCA, Ferrari will be domiciled in the Netherlands. Today's filing was done under the name of New Business Netherlands N.V., although this name will be changed closer to the IPO date.

According to the filing, the Agnelli family, through its holding company Exor, will end up with around 24 percent of the newly independent Ferrari.

Under a loyalty scheme, long-term investors in the company will be given preferential voting rights, with two votes for every share held. Only entities that hold on to their Ferrari shares for three years or more can qualify for this "loyalty voting mechanism".

Existing shareholders in FCA and Ferrari will be granted immediate access to these preferential votes. This will mean that initially Exor, with 35.8 percent of the votes on offer, and Piero Ferrari, with 14.9 percent, will together exercise effective control over Ferrari.

Ferrari's separation and floatation on the stock market is part of a scheme devised by FCA boss Sergio Marchionne to cut debt and raise cash for the company's 48 billion euro ($70.9 billion) product development plan.

As this filing is the first of several that need to be lodged with US regulators, FCA has yet to reveal how many Ferrari shares will be issued as part of its IPO and how much each one will be priced at.

In earlier statements, Marchionne has stated that he believes Ferrari to be worth "at least" 10 billion euros ($14.7 billion). At the time of writing, FCA has a total market capitalisation of 18.2 billion euros ($26.8 billion).

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