Pininfarina's Financial Woes

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed)
Jan 1st 2009 at 5:02PM

When it comes to car design, Italian company Pininfarina is one of the greats. The design firm has also lent its name to wine, furniture and even a hotel. Now Pininfarina is the latest victim of the economic fallout. The founding family of Pininfarina has been forced to sell its 50.6% stake in the company in order to get out from under a mountain of debt. Buyers for the stake may include Vincent Bolloré, who already is working with Pininfarina on an electric car and Ratan Tata of the Tata car company which is already working on bailing out Jaguar Land Rover in Britain. Pininfarina is associated with many of the best models of Ferrari, Maserati and Alfa Romeo models but it is when the company began making cars themselves that they ran into trouble. When sales fell off, Pininfarina found themselves in financial trouble. The company is getting out of its contracts with Alfa Romeo and Ford and will focus on electric car production.

Tags: design, pininfarina