Pininfarina – the celebrated Italian automobile design house – has issued a statement saying they expect a deal to be worked out with the Indian auto major, Mahindra & Mahindra, within the next few days.
Pininfarina said that the talks between the controlling shareholder Pincar, creditor banks and Mahindra had never broken off or failed. But it took them some time to figure out how the shares would be acquired and also restructuring of the debt. The total debt of the Italian design major is pegged at about Rs 370cr with the Cambiano-based company reporting operating losses since 2004.
Pininfarina has designed almost all Ferrari cars including the latest Ferrari 488, Maserati cars, Alfa Romeos and even a one-off Rolls-Royce amongst a host of other cars. Since automobile manufacturers started building design capabilities in-house, the design houses like Pininfarina started running into losses. Interestingly, Ratan Tata, chairman emeritus of the Tata conglomerate, was a part of the consortium that helped Pininfarina restructure its almost Rs 1000cr debt between 2009 and 2012.
