Italian auto parts maker Brembo has sold its entire 5.6% stake in Italian tyre maker Pirelli for around EUR283 million, a move that has dampened speculation about a merger between the two Italian groups. Sinochem holds a 37% stake in the tyre maker.
The premium brake maker said that it completed the placement of the 55.8 million ordinary shares it owns in Pirelli at the price of EUR5.07 each.
Camfin, the vehicle of Italian businessman Marco Tronchetti Provera and Pirelli’s second largest investor, said it had bought an additional 2.5% stake in the group, bringing its shareholding to 25.28%.
Tronchetti Provera, who has led Pirelli since 1992, is now its executive vice chairman.
Camfin added its board authorised it to increase its stake in Pirelli to 29.9% over the next 24 months.
Brembo built its stake in Pirelli from 2020 to reach a 6% level at one point and last year also entered a shareholder agreement with Camfin.
Brembo’s purchases had fed speculation about an Italian shareholders’ block emerging within Pirelli to balance the influence of its largest shareholder, Chinese state-owned Sinochem Group , especially as the Italian government intervened last year to curb Sinochem’s grip on the company.
The stakebuilding had also fuelled talk of a potential mid-term plan for a merger between Brembo and Pirelli to create an Italian heavyweight in the premium automotive parts industry.
Brembo has said in the past it was looking for opportunities for an acquisition of “significant size”, even as big as the company itself, but so far has never found a concrete target.