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“I want to be absolutely clear: we will not spend a single dollar, neither today, nor in the future. Would we like to call this a barter? Well, yes, it is a barter.”
—Fiat CEO Sergio Marchionne on negotiations with Chrysler
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So we’re back to a barter economy… I’ll be very interested in seeing if Chrysler factories will be churning out any non-Fiats in 5 years.
If they’re churning out anything at all.
What FIAT calls a barter is pretty clear. They will take some Chrysler from the cold dead hands of Cerberus and in return will take money from Obama to keep it open for some time.
In the meantime FIAT will do a aggressive restructuring (like Marchionne has done with FIAT itself beforehand). What FIAT has done in essence was that they kept pretty much of the existing workforce, but he slashed the management with the big axe, flattened the hierarchy and with this speeded up the processes. I have to agree that the Italian government did give them some aid to keep the workforce, but he sure has the guts to restructure a company with the blade between his teeth.
But what we also have to keep in mind that he will most surely take care that all interlectual property is taken care of and transferred to Italy, along with the brand names. If push comes to shove the Italian Government (Berlusconi) will cover him. Because if FIAT coughs, Italy will have the flu.