Marchionne pondering Ferrari IPO?
 

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If you're reading Autoblog right now, then there is a pretty good chance you'd love to own a Ferrari at some point in your life. Unfortunately, there is a far, far greater chance that your garage will never feature the Prancing Horse. But just because you can't own a California or 458 Italia doesn't mean you can't own a chunk of the Maranello-based supercar maker. Automotive News reports that Fiat S.p.A CEO Sergio Marchionne says that there is a chance the automaker could issue an IPO for Ferrari by 2014.

We know that some enthusiasts will jump at the chance to purchase a single share of Ferrari stock. It would look damn cool to feature a share of Ferrari stock hung on the most important wall in the house. But how much can a company that only sells just over 6,000 vehicles per year be worth? Apparently quite a bit. Morgan Stanley recently valued the exotic car maker at $3.1 billion, or $100 million more than Fiat's volume brands. It doesn't hurt that Ferrari routinely pulls in profits of $300 million to $400 million with ridiculous profit margins of 13 percent per very pricey vehicle. Of course, Ferrari also pulls in quite a bit of coin with its ridiculous branding efforts that include everything from clothing to electronics.

While a Ferrari IPO would net quite a bit of liquid gold for Fiat, Marchionne also mentioned that he'd love for Turin, Italy-based automaker to revert back to its traditional ownership stake of 90 percent. Since Enzo Ferrari passed down 10 percent of his company to his son, if Fiat hits 90 percent, an IPO is out of the question.


Gallery: Ferrari 458 Challenge racer

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