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菲亚特的新面孔(节选)

菲亚特的新面孔(节选)

David Whitford 2013-07-11
菲亚特母公司Exor今年排在财富世界500强第19,然而,掌管这个商业王国的却是一个37岁的年轻人。他接管家族产业的时候还是一名在校大学生,但从他担任Exor掌门人两年来的表现看,他有望超越前辈。他不爱夜店爱家人,不喝咖啡爱喝茶,他是37岁的约翰•埃尔坎。

Exor集团CEO约翰•埃尔坎

    塞尔吉奥•马尔奇奥尼说:“把那个关掉。”他指的是我的录音机。好吧。他要在办公电脑上给我看两则尚未发布的全新克莱斯勒电视广告。

    其中一则广告是返回家园的战争老兵,由奥普拉•温弗瑞担任旁白,另一则讲述了农夫的故事,由保罗•哈维为上帝配音。两则广告都是关于克莱斯勒(Chrysler)的产品,但其中蕴含的情感却属于全体美国人——基调伤感却达到了预期效果。菲亚特(Fiat)和克莱斯勒的CEO马尔乔内说:“如今我们是唯一可以讨论底特律的人了。我们是美国三大汽车公司中最小的,但我们有讲述美国故事的权利。这有点奇怪,因为这家公司已经归外国人所有了。”

    克莱斯勒近来家谱复杂。公司于1998年被戴姆勒(Daimler)合并,于2007年被卖给了私人股本,又于2008年被美国联邦政府收购。从那时起,它就开始逐渐被纳入菲亚特的麾下。这家意大利公司自2009年克莱斯勒按照美国联邦破产法第11章申请破产保护起,就开始收购其股份。到2011年,它已经拥有了大部分股权。菲亚特希望从一家全美汽车联合会的退休人员信托基金中收购剩余的41.5%股权,而这取决于特拉华州的法庭判决这些股份的价值,预计今年夏天就可见眉目。所以,克莱斯勒实际上已经是菲亚特的了。

    不过我们继续追寻,会发现菲亚特实际上属于Exor集团。Exor总部位于意大利都灵史上闻名的灵格托工厂,是一家投资公司。我曾在那里采访过前一日刚从底特律车展返回的马尔奇奥尼,采访过程中烟雾缭绕。菲亚特旗下本身拥有法拉利(Ferrari)、玛莎拉蒂(Maserati)、蓝旗亚(Lancia)、阿尔法•罗密欧(Alfa Romeo)这些汽车品牌,还奇怪地拥有一家都灵日报《新闻报》(La Stampa)。而除去拥有菲亚特30%的股份之外,Exor还握有商业地产中介公司(高纬物业,Cushman & Wakefield)和重型设备公司(CNH工业,它包括之前的菲亚特工业)的大量股份,还有少量股份遍布房地产开发(Almacantar)、银行业(Banca Leonardo)、媒体业(《经济学人》和Banijay集团)、纸业(Sequana)和都灵足球队尤文图斯(Juventus)。2012年,这家公司的整体销售额达到了1,463亿美元,让它得以在今年的财富世界500强排行榜上攀升了19位,排名来到第26。

    尽管Exor是一家上市公司,它却由菲亚特1899年的联合创始人乔瓦尼•阿涅利的子孙严密控制【Fiat是意大利都灵汽车公司(Fabbrica Italiana di Automobili Torino)的首字母缩写】,并成为了欧洲最庞大的工业企业之一,也成就了生生不息的家族财富。所以,Exor是阿涅利家族的产业。

    阿涅利家族有一位领袖式的家长。一直以来,这个角色都是由一位男性担当。1945年,乔瓦尼•阿涅利逝世前一直占据这一地位。他选择了与他同名的孙子乔瓦尼作为继承人,就是我们所知的贾尼,或l'Avvocato【(意为律师)对于他法律水平的肯定,尽管他从未当过律师】。年轻时的贾尼非常英俊、富有激情,有着无比的胆量。生于特权阶级的他在二战时期奋战在俄国前线,收集艺术品、汽车和情人,与皇室一同出游,习惯在衬衫袖子外戴着腕表,与联邦斗争并取得了胜利。他向世人充分展示了在混乱和闪耀的20世纪中叶作为一个意大利人意味着什么。

    2003年,贾尼去世,留下濒临破产的菲亚特。他唯一一个女儿的长子成了他的接班人。这是一个身材瘦削、脸颊红润,长着一头卷发的工程师。当初,家族的重担开始落在他肩头的时候,他还是一名在校大学生。这个初出茅庐的新人拥有一个德国人的姓氏,喜欢喝茶,不爱喝咖啡;喜欢和家人一起外出就餐,不爱泡夜店。他作为一名商人的表现怎么样呢?他今年刚刚37岁,2011年才开始担任Exor公司的CEO。不过,他上任以来,菲亚特实现了稳定,对克莱斯勒的投资也取得了成功,涉猎广泛的阿涅利王国也实现了重组。鉴于这些良好的表现,他有望超越他的前辈。如今的阿涅利家族已经进入约翰•埃尔坎时代。(财富中文网)

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    "Turn that off," Sergio Marchionne says, indicating my recorder. Fair enough. He wants to show me a couple of new Chrysler TV ads on his office computer before they are released.

    One is about returning war veterans, narrated by Oprah Winfrey, and the other is about farmers, starring Paul Harvey as the voice of God. Each is also about Chrysler products, of course, but the message -- maudlin but effectual -- is America. "We're the only ones who can speak about Detroit today," says Marchionne, who is the CEO of both Fiat and Chrysler. "We're the smallest of the three, and there's a level of legitimacy associated with us pitching the American story. Which is almost bizarre, because the thing is foreign-owned."

    Chrysler's recent pedigree is complicated. The company was kidnapped by Daimler in 1998, sold into private equity in 2007, and bailed out by the federal government in 2008, and since then it has been sidling step by step into Fiat's fold. The Italian carmaker started buying shares after Chrysler filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2009, and by 2011 it had accumulated a majority stake. Fiat hopes to buy the remaining 41.5% from a UAW retiree trust fund, pending a Delaware court's ruling on what the stake is worth; that could happen this summer. Chrysler, you see, is actually Fiat.

    But Fiat, if we keep going, is really Exor, an investment company headquartered at the historic Lingotto factory in Turin, Italy, which is where I interviewed Marchionne in a haze of cigarette smoke the day after he returned from the Detroit Auto Show. Besides owning 30% of Fiat, which itself owns Ferrari, Maserati, Lancia, Alfa Romeo, and, oddly, the Turin daily La Stampa, Exor also has big holdings in commercial real estate brokerage (Cushman & Wakefield) and heavy equipment (CNH Industrial, which includes the former Fiat Industrial), and smaller ones in property development (Almacantar), banking (Banca Leonardo), media (The Economist and Banijay Group), paper (Sequana), and the Turin soccer team Juventus. Total sales in 2012 were $146.3 billion. That puts Exor at No. 26 on this year's Fortune Global 500 list, up 19 spots from last year.

    While Exor is a public company, it is tightly controlled by the descendants of Giovanni Agnelli, who co-founded Fiat (it's an acronym for Fabbrica Italiana di Automobili Torino) in 1899, built it into one of the great industrial enterprises in Europe, and so gave rise to an enduring family fortune. Exor, you see, is the Agnelli family.

    The Agnelli family has one leader, a capo di famiglia. Always one, always male. It was Giovanni Agnelli until he died in 1945. He chose as his successor his grandson and namesake, the Agnelli we knew as Gianni, or l'Avvocato (a nod to his law degree, though he never practiced). Gianni in his prime was brutally handsome, indiscriminately passionate, and daring in the extreme. Born to privilege, he fought on the Russian front in World War II, collected art and automobiles and mistresses, hung out with royalty, wore his wristwatch outside his shirt sleeve, fought the unions and won, and came to personify for the world what it meant to be an Italian man in full during the raucous and glittering middle decades of the 20th century.

    Gianni died in 2003, having left Fiat on the verge of bankruptcy. His successor -- the eldest son of his only daughter -- is a lanky, apple-cheeked, curly-haired engineer who was still a college student when the weight of the family began settling on his shoulders. The new guy has a Germanic last name, drinks tea instead of coffee, and prefers family outings to nights on the town. But as a businessman? He's still just 37, and he has held the CEO title at Exor only since 2011, but considering the good things that have happened on his watch -- the stabilization of Fiat, the successful investment in Chrysler, the reorganization of the far-flung family empire -- he could outshine his ancestors. The Agnelli family, today, is John Elkann.

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