Chrysler and Fiat will be known as Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV as they move forward together as a single company.
Fiat’s board of directors agreed on the new name Wednesday, with headquarters for tax purposes in the United Kingdom. But the board sidestepped the thorny political issue of whether the true headquarters would be in the United States or Italy.
The announcement came on the same day that both Fiat and Chrysler announced fourth-quarter and full-year earnings. Chrysler once again propped up its parent company, which would have lost money without the U.S. automaker’s strong profits.
Shares of the combined company will trade jointly on the New York Stock Exchange and in Milan, Italy. For each share of Fiat, shareholders will get one share in the new company, which will trade with a symbol of FCA starting by Oct. 1. A new logo calls the company FCA. It now includes the Jeep, Ram, Dodge and Chrysler brands as well as Fiat, Maserati, Ferrari and Lancia and Alfa Romeo.
The new company will maintain significant research, engineering and financial operations in Fiat’s hometown of Turin, Italy, and on Chrysler’s sprawling office complex in Auburn Hills, Mich. This avoids political controversies in Italy, where Fiat is the largest private employer, and in the U.S., where the government saved Chrysler by funding its 2009 bankruptcy.
The corporate line on the headquarters location is that it’s on an airplane. Currently many of its 22-member leadership team have multiple offices in Auburn Hills, Turin and other parts of the world. Like Sergio Marchionne, CEO of both companies, they spend hours on corporate jets flying to meetings and to visit factories and other operations.
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