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Italian automaker Fiat announced on Tuesday the official merger of Fiat Industrial, a separate entity from the group's automotive division, and Cnh Global Nv, a world leader in the agricultural and construction equipment businesses based in Amsterdam.
The two entities would be merged into the Cnh Industrial Nv, which will be based in the Netherlands, according to a statement from the Fiat Group.
"The merger between Cnh and Fiat Industrial represents the beginning of a new industrial era for the Fiat Group," Fiat CEO Sergio Marchionne said. The merger will be completed by September and shares of the new company will trade in New York and eventually in Milan.
In 2011, the Fiat Group spun off Fiat Industrial to hold its non-automotive activities, including the production of commercial vehicles, trucks and buses as well as engines and transmissions.
The Italian automaker closed 2012 with a net income of more than 1.4 billion euros (1.7 billion U.S. dollars) boosted by Chrysler after it secured the right to buy tranches of shares in the U.S. company, agreeing to take it out of bankruptcy four years ago.
Since last year Fiat, which already owns 58.5 percent of Chrysler, has been exercising options as part of a plan to take over its U.S. partner and create a company big enough to compete on an international scale, arousing increasing fears that it could be on its way out of Italy.
Marchionne said on Tuesday that a 700-million-euro (894-million-euro) investment in the Sevel plant, in central Italy, will be the last in Fiat's homecountry unless there are "clear rules" respecting company rights.
"We cannot accept that violent behavior, and the boycotting of our efforts, become considered the exercising of rights even on the part of authoritative institutions," the CEO said. The remarks came after a left-wing labor union won a legal battle against the automaker over worker representation.
Fiat has also recently levered the fundraising maneuver to increase its stake in troubled Italian publishing house Rcs Mediagroup from 10 percent to a possible 20 percent, which would make it the largest single shareholder.
Marchionne defined as "strategic" the automaker's investment in the publishing house, which is also owner of Italy's largest circulation newspaper Corriere della Sera. The move aroused concerns among observers over "endangered freedom of opinion" at an influential part of the Italian press.
