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Ducati for Sale

 
 

Used, in excellent working order, red, only $1.58 (B)

That's right, now is the time to invest in Italian motorcycles. The world economy is still low, the Euro is in trouble, the NZ dollar ain't bad.

So offered for sale is one Ducati.
The Ducati, as in the company.

The price tag attached is €1 billion ($1.582 Billion to us NZers at the moment). It would seem that that price, to those automotive firms who have that kind of money to throw around as they crawl out of the resession, that price is pretty reasonable.

Apparently, Investindustrial (one of Europe's leading investment groups) spent much of 2011 trying to flog off its majority portion of Ducati Motor Holdings, and was in negotiation with Mercedes-Benz over the acquisition. So far the only thing stopping the Germans from taking over from the Europeans is the Germans being so... ...German!

Ducati was rumored to have been interested in selling stock this year, so the recent news it's all up for grabs makes sense. 

Andrea Bonomi, the Chairman of the Board at Investindustrial told the Financial Times. “Ducati is now a perfect company but the further growth it requires needs the support of a world-class industrial partner. This year, we will work towards that partner.”

With the princely sum of €1B on the swing tag, some would be so bold as to estimate Ducati’s yearly revenues at around €900M for the 40,000-or-so units it puts out in a year. Ducati had a great year in 2011, and Investindustrial is keen to make a profit while the brand is strong and financial return good - about threefold what they paid. Ducati's books are pretty clean too, with a low debt ratio, of 1.7.

There is another reason for a car manufacturer to buy Ducati though. As the P.C. Enviro-tree-huggers brigade cracks down on emissions from vehicles, motorcycles are a nice loophole. A company like Mercedes could use the emission figures from Ducati’s motorcycles to help lower their company average. If Mercedes is not that into Ducati, then BMW, Volkswagen, and Mahindra will all be potential suitors.