The automotive crisis has claimed another victim, leading to the divorce between brakes and tires. End of an alliance that never really began between Marco Tronchetti Provera and the Bombassei family. If anyone had deluded themselves that there would be a marriage worth 12 billion in capitalization between Brembo and Pirelli, they need to think again. The brake giant controlled by the Bombassei family and led by Matteo Tiraboschi, through an offer managed by BNP Paribas, sold the 5.58% stake it had in the group headed by Marco Tronchetti Provera for 5.07 euros. It practiced a discount of 5.1% compared to the closing price the day before for a total collection of 282.9 million.
Marco Tronchetti Provera himself and his allies bought half of the shares on sale, who purchased 2.5% of Pirelli’s capital, rising to 25.28% and committed to reaching 29.9% over the next few years. 24 months. It means that the group will no longer be scalable unless it launches a total takeover bid which at current prices would cost more than five billion.
Brembo’s first entry into Pirelli dates back to March 2020, with a 2.4% share then increased to 5% in July 2022. In 2023 Camfin and Brembo had also signed a consultation pact. Bombassei had contributed another 0.42% to the agreement. At that time it was believed possible to create a mega automotive hub. Only a year ago the owner of Brembo, Alberto Bombassei, had defined the marriage with Pirelli as “a good thing”, while specifying that “at the moment there was nothing serious”.
But now the auto sector has fallen into a deep crisis, barring the way to any such project. Furthermore, in June last year the Italian government imposed some measures to protect the autonomy of Pirelli and its management and protect technologies and data of strategic importance. A provision that severely limited the governance and management prerogatives of Pirelli’s first shareholder with 37%, the Chinese Sinochem.
A few months after the government’s measure, Sinochem lost its Chinese capital partner, the Silk-Road fund, which dissolved the pact with the Beijing chemical giant and then sold, again with an accelerated procedure, its 9% . On that occasion, Tronchetti and his allies in the MTP safe took the opportunity to round up their share up to 22.8%. Now they have committed to locking down control to cover themselves from any unagreed initiatives by the Chinese partners.
