Reuters: TPG is out as Majority Owner

TwistingAsphalt’s nameless and faceless ‘Ducati Insider’ is back with some new dish. Today I received an email from our Ducati ‘Deepthroat’ who forwarded me a link to a Reuters Report dated July 26th, 2005 that says that Texas Pacific Group (or TPG) is looking to get out of the motorcycle business;

MILAN, July 26 (Reuters) – U.S. private equity fund Texas Pacific Group is in talks with various parties over selling its 35 percent stake in Ducati (DMH.MI: Quote, Profile, Research), the head of the Italian motorcycle maker said on Tuesday.

Media have long reported that TPG wants to sell its Ducati stake, possibly to Italian fund Investindustrial.

“(TPG) is talking with four or five parties who are interested in the Ducati story,” Chief Executive Federico Minoli told reporters, adding that management was focused on the “strategic continuity” of Ducati, the maker of the Monster bike.

Assuming that this comes to pass, TPG will have owned a controlling interest in Ducati Motor Corp for roughly a decade. They purchased a 51% stake in 1996 and subsquently helped sort out a number of production problems. However they were never able to greatly increase the companies market share – especially in the United States. From a historical perspective TPG will go down as having been crucial to the survivability of the company. Had they not come to the plate in the mid 90′s who knows if there would still be a fully functional company.

Update: SuperbikePlanet also has the story. They’ve made a particularly valid point;

TPG is allegedly getting out because “(Ducati’s) second-quarter profit fell 70 percent as it spent money to reorganize its U.S. business and the dollar weakened”.

Probably a larger factor: TPG wants to invest $200 million in bankrupt US Air when the the airline emerges from bankruptcy.

As some of you might recall, our ‘Ducati Insider’ broke the still yet to be proven rumor that Pierre Terblanche is out as head designer awhile back.