Ducati Motor Holding has announced plans to buy out shareholders at a 23% premium and take Ducati private. According to Forbes, this news drove up Piaggio stocks, though Piaggio asserted today that they have no intention of following Ducati’s lead. 56.5% of Piaggio shares are held by IMMSI SpA, Piaggio chairman/CEO Roberto Colaninno’s holding company.
(See comments, I originally totally mangled this story and reported that Ducati was threatening to buy out Piaggio stockholders. I blame Forbes for writing confusing sentences.)
That’s one heck of a mangled summary.
By my reading…
When Ducati announced on Tuesday that they planned to take themselves private and delist their shares at a 23% premium to Monday’s closing price, analysts ran Piaggio’s share price up 7% on speculation that Piaggio may follow Ducati’s lead. However, a Piaggio spokesman absolutely denied that they were considering taking that action.
You’re right, I think. I totally misread the story, though I can see how. Where they said “announced a bid to take the company private and delist its shares” I took “the company” to mean “Piaggio,” rather than themselves.
I *wondered* how I hadn’t heard anything about this, now it’s clear that it’s totally a non-story. Nevermind (editing original story now).