Ex-Fiat exec: Should have sold to DCX

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Automotive News / May 7, 2007 - 1:00 am /
Fiat should have accepted an offer from DaimlerChrysler to buy its auto division seven years ago. That's the view of former Fiat Chairman Paolo Fresco, who is quoted in Agnelli, a new book by French journalist Pierre de Gasquet.

The book looks at the Agnelli family, which controls the Italian automaker.

"Could you imagine what the Fiat group could be today, having obtained 12 billion euros … instead of having poured 5 billion euros into fixing Fiat Auto?" Fresco asks.

Fiat Auto was suffering heavy losses when Fresco took over the group in 1998. He was not convinced the division could survive on its own. So in 1999, Fresco began talking with other automakers.

"Initially, I proposed several alternatives, including BMW and Volvo. Then I sealed a deal with Juergen Schrempp of DaimlerChrysler," Fresco is quoted as saying.

Fresco recalls that patriarch Gianni Agnelli knew Fiat Auto needed a partner but did not want to sell the core business of the industrial group his grandfather had founded in 1899.

"My brain says it is an excellent offer, but my heart prevents me from accepting it," Fresco remembers Agnelli saying.

Instead, Fiat embarked on an ill-fated alliance with General Motors that lasted only five years