Italian design firm, Pinfarina, has made a name for itself in the field of automotive design. It was Pinfarina that came up with the high-end designs of many Maserati, Ferrari, Alfa Romeo and Peugeot models. In the past 85 years, the design firm has designed almost 1000 cars spread across many brands In a USD 28 million deal, the Indian conglomerate, the USD 16.9 billion Mahindra Group has acquired a 78 per cent stake in the renowned Italian design house. There are also plans in the pipeline to make an open offer for the remaining 24 per cent. There will be no changes in the management and Pinfarina will continue to function as an independent company that is listed on the Milan Stock Exchange under the Chairmanship of Paolo Pininfarina.
In a press release regarding the deal, Mahindra has mentioned that it will settle Pinfarina debts to the tune of over USD 125 million and invest an additional USD 20 million into the company. Taking all this into account, Mahindra is out of pocket to an extent of almost USD 185 million as an outcome of the Pinfarina deal.
Both parties are set to benegit from the deal as Tech Mahindra will get access to Pinfarina’s core customer base of automotive manufacturers in Italy, Germany, France US and the rapidly growing automotive market in China. Pinfarina, through Mahindra will get access to 90 countries and 780 customers and will eb able to expand its scale of operations to a global level.
Speaking about the acquisition, Anand Mahindra, Chairman of the Mahindra Group said that the Italian company’s legendary reputation for high-end design will definitely be expected to transform the design capabilities of the entire Mahindra Group. This is expected to significantly boost the appeal of products made by group companies to customers as product design is playing an increasingly crucial role in influencing customer choice and experience.
Pinfarina is most famous for coming up with the designs for the Ferrari 212 and the highly popular 250 GT. With Pinfarina now belonging to the Mahindra group, we can definitely expect Mahindra to ramp up the style quotient across its entire range of products.
Manju Mathew, an MBA in marketing, completed publisher training courses from the Oxford Brookes University and New York University. She started with marketing and PR roles before moving on to her current position as a full time writer. Currently living in Dubai, her life as an expat has sharpened her observation skills and flair for writing. She enjoys writing about luxury cars like Ferrari, Lamborghini, etc even if she can only dream of owning them.
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