Ducati Motor Holding Changes Hands… Again

It would appear the annual ‘who owns Ducati at the moment’ right of passage is upon us as Dealer News is reporting that the three largest share holders of Ducati Motor Holding S.p.A. have decided use a newly formed company, called Performance Motorcycles S.p.A. (which is certainly a catchy name now isn’t it???), to consolidate the remaining outstanding shares of the company. One wonders if the topsy-turvy ownership of the brand will ever end. It certainly seems they go through corporate parents faster then an L-Twin eats through oil…

Ducati Motor Holding S.p.A. is to be absorbed by Performance Motorcycles S.p.A., an investment vehicle formed in April by three of the OEM’s main shareholders.

Ducati leadership says a draft of the merger plan will be drawn up and subsequently approved by the board of directors in September. The merger will cause the delisting of Ducati by the end of the year, the OEM said in a prepared statement.

In March, Ducati shareholders Investindustrial, BS Investimenti and Hospitals of Ontario Pension Plan (HOPP) announced they intended to launch a €390.8 million ($579 million) bid to purchase the 70 percent of the motorcycle manufacturer they didn’t already own. They planned to fund about 50 percent of the bid, with the remainder financed by bank Intesa Sanpaolo SpA. At the time, Private equity firm Investindustrial owned 15.6 percent of Ducati Motor Holding, SpA; Canadian pension fund HOPP owned 7.4 percent; and BS Investimenti held about 7 percent.

You can read more about it here.