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.
Ducati Sponsors A Blog…
Thought this was interesting… The Blog Herald is reportingtonight that growing Italian blog network Blogo.it has announced that it has signed an exclusive sponsorship deal with Ducati for Blogo’s new MotoBlog. They claim that this will be the first sponsorship for a commercial blog in Europe… Personally I find it hard to believe that Ducati is the first European company to try this, but hey who knows. I guess it’s possible, though the wording sounds awfully PRish to me… If true this would mark yet another very keen marketing move by the Bolognia gang… Of course all that flashy and forward thinking marketing goes for not if you’ve still got people bitching about quality control issues.
Still it’s an interesting technology play that vaguely reminds me of how Ducati was one of the early pioneers selling bikes over the internet with the released of the Mike Hailwood MH900 in 2000. Originally that bike was only sold via the internet, so obviously they’ve been thinking of the ‘net as a medium for their brand for quite awhile. Of course when it comes to blogs, one of the great attractions is that they’re not usually corporate PR vehicles but rather other consumers sharing their experiences. I wonder if a very publicly stated corporate sponsorship will alter that perception for end users of the site or if they’ll even care… Frankly I’m not sure what makes sponsoring a blog any different than placing an advertisement on it.
DMH Restructuring
I’m sure given how restructuring tends to go, everyone at Ducati who got axed or moved around already knew most of this information well before it was announced. But I thought I’d post it here, if only because I’m find it interesting that two particular individuals are left out - head designer Pierre Terblanche & American marketing whiz David Gross - both of whom if you read any number of Ducati related books tend to be credited with quite a lot when it comes to the ‘look’ of the machines and in David’s case, the ad campaigns. Granted the PR Release says that it’s a ‘technical area restructuring’, but let’s be honest folks the technical folks run the show in this case… Or at least the racing department does…
NEW APPOINTMENTS AND RESTRUCTURING IN DUCATI MOTOR HOLDING
Bologna, 28 January 2005 - Ducati Motor Holding, S.p.A. (NYSE: DMH, Borsa Italiana S.p.A: DMH), today defined a new organization structure in view of an internal reorganization of the company’s technical area.Claudio Domenicali, in addition to his consolidated role of Ducati Corse Managing Director, is appointed to the position of Product Director. Domenicali will manage all the resources involved in strategic planning, development, marketing, design and product quality.
Gigi Mengoli is appointed Assistant Product Manager, a position that will see him involved in specific projects as well as giving precious support for Domenicali in his new job, advising him in the growth of the structure and the processes that will guide Ducati product development in the years to come. This is a significant role which will enable the company to maintain at Ducati’s disposal the vast experience and the passion of a historical figure like Mengoli, who will assist Domenicali in this exciting and difficult new challenge.
Mengoli will also take on the role of President of the Ducati Foundation, which will be formed with the aim of collecting, evaluating and spreading the history of Ducati: from the Museum to the technical archives; from restoration projects to theme exhibitions.Filippo Preziosi, Ducati Corse Technical Director, takes on the new position of Ducati Corse Director General with the responsibility of managing all Ducati Corse operating activities, and will continue to report to Claudio Domenicali, Ducati Corse Managing Director.
These are major modifications that represent an important restructuring of the organization of Ducati and which will radically affect the company, employees, working processes and which change a series of consolidated working balances and methods.
“I am convinced that our new organization structure”, commented Federico Minoli, Chairman and Managing Director of Ducati Motor Holding, “will combine the wisdom and the unique nature of the technical solutions developed over the course of our history with the potential and the efficiency of a method today successfully applied within Ducati Corse and which I would like to become the future standard for the entire company.”
This restructuring is completed with the appointment of Cristiano Silei, who after two years spent as Director of Strategic Planning and Product Development, returns to the position of Commercial Director of Ducati Motor Holding, a role he successfully held from 1997 to 1998.
