Fiat and Chrysler chief executive Sergio Marchionne said he had no immediate plans to merge the two automakers as shares in a new stripped-down Fiat began trading on the stock exchange on Monday. But Fiat may raise its stake in Chrysler, which it saved from bankruptcy, to 51 percent if the troubled US automaker returns to the stock market this year, he added.
"I have no plans to merge Fiat and Chrysler today," Marchionne told journalists at a ceremony organised at the Milan stock exchange for the first listing of spin-off Fiat Industrial, which contains the conglomerate's non-automotive elements. "I think we have done a relatively decent job in the last 18 months" in terms of "industrial integration" of Fiat and Chrysler, he said, adding "a legal merger is not going to change our lives."
Italy's largest private employer, created by the legendary Agnelli family and a symbol of the country's postwar industrialisation, owns 20 percent of Chrysler. In the biggest reorganisation in Fiat's history, it took operational control of Chrysler in June 2009 after the US automaker nearly went bankrupt.