MILAN Stellantis does not need the Italian state as a shareholder as the carmaker is in good shape, its Chairman John Elkann said on Thursday, responding to business lobby calls for Italy to invest directly in the group.
Paolo Scudieri, who heads the Italian automotive association ANFIA, was quoted in Il Sole 24 Ore earlier on Thursday saying that it was "necessary" and "right" for Rome to directly invest in Stellantis as a counterweight to the shareholding of the French state.
The French government, a former investor in Peugeot maker PSA which in 2021 merged with Fiat Chrysler to form Stellantis, is now a "relevant" shareholder in the Franco-Italian carmaker with around a 6% stake.
"I think states invest in companies when companies are doing bad. And Stellantis is doing very good," Elkann said in Turin in comments confirmed by a spokesman.
Elkann, the head of Italy's Agnelli family and the CEO of its investment company Exor, said France's role as a Stellantis shareholder was justified by difficulties PSA had in the past, which required French government intervention.
Exor is the single largest shareholder in Stellantis with a 14% stake.
Last year, before the September elections which brought Giorgia Meloni's centre-right government to power, the current Industry Minister Adolfo Urso -- who previously chaired the COPASIR parliamentary committee on security -- campaigned for state lender CDP to buy a stake in Stellantis.
Urso is among the promoters of a new strategic investment fund Rome is setting up, potentially allowing the government to buy stakes in listed companies outside of the financial sector and take a more activist industrial policy, under a draft bill seen by Reuters.
However, a stipulation that the fund can target companies headquartered in Italy seems to exclude an investment in Stellantis, which has its legal base in the Netherlands.
(Reporting by Giulio Piovaccari. Editing by Jane Merriman)
