Fiat Auto spinoff to be addressed in April

By COLLEEN BARRY

GENEVA

Fiat will address the question of whether it's going to spin off its automobile unit when it presents a new business plan to investors in April, Fiat CEO Sergio Marchionne said Wednesday.

The possibility of spinning off Fiat Auto, which includes the Fiat, Lancia and Alfa Romeo brands, from the rest of the group has long been on the table. Fiat also makes trucks and agricultural equipment. A spinoff was presented as a concrete option last spring when Fiat, fresh from an alliance with Chrysler, was talking with General Motors about aquiring its German subsidiary Opel, plans that were eventually dropped.

"There is an English expression, you either kiss it or you kill it. I always said it is one of the things to resolve. Let's wait for April," Marchionne told a reporters on the second press day of the Geneva Auto Show.

Marchionne will present Fiat's business plan on April 21, which is expected to contain new model rollouts and production plans, complementing one presented last fall on Chrysler. Fiat took a controlling 20 percent share of Chrysler last June in exchange for sharing technology and management expertise.

Marchionne said while the Chrysler story is clear "the level of interface between Chrysler and Fiat is not clear ... It's not clear from the Fiat side. We need to be able to provide the linkage to close the loop."

Among the plans that will be presented in April will be the first car jointly developed with Chrysler. Marchionne said it would be built on the new "Compact" platform on which the Alfa Romeo Giulietta is being built.

The platform is one of the key pieces of technology that will be part of new model ranges developed within the alliance.

Alfa Romeo unveiled the Giulietta in Geneva, quite possibly the car that will decide the sporty car unit's future, which is under review.

Marchionne said Alfa Romeo's performance has been weighed down by a lack of "trust and credibility" in its model range.

But he added Fiat has been addressing that with the MiTo, the brand's first small car built on the Punto platform, which has appealed to first-time Alfa buyers, and now the Giulietta, the 147 replacement which he said "contains the best of Fiat technology."

The Giulietta goes on sale in May.