Ducati's twisted lineage

[ducatiz]

Ducati has had various owners in the last 30 years, as you all may know:

Finn Meccanica / VM Motori

Cagiva

TPG

Investindustrial




In 1977 Harley Davidson owned a company called Aeronautic Macchi, or Aermacchi and had imported some of those bikes under the Harley name.

In 1978, HD sold Aermacchi to .... Cagiva!  Cagiva later bought Ducati in 1984 or 85, and sold them off to TPG in 1996.

TPG also owned Burger King from 2002-2006 or so.

Cagiva bought MV Agusta (revived the brand) in 1991 and renamed the management company from Cagiva to MV. 

Harley bought MV in 2008 for 108 mil from the Castiglioni family, and then sold it back to them for something like 20-30 mil.

VM Motori is a maker of Diesel engines, most notably the engines used by Jeep for the Liberty and expected in 2013 in the Chevy Cruze.

Finn Meccanica is an Italian company despite the name and a maker of various high end control systems, notably for the Defense department.  They owned VM Motori in the 1980s.

Ducati is currently owned by Performance Motorcycles SpA, a management company founded by the shareholders of Ducati, which includes Hospitals of Ontario Pension Plan -- a pension management company. At the time of the buyout, HOPP owned about 1/5 the outstanding shares.

[sofadriver]

Nice move by Harley 
I just checked with my 6yr old grandaughter who confirmed that Harley had indeed called her for advice. She says she will give more thought to her financial consultations in future, adding that "Hey, you can't win 'em all"

[Frisco]

Do we get a discount at Burger King if we ride in?

[Privateer]

to further complicate it, there's an unconfirmed rumor about VW buying Ducati

http://www.gp-inside.com/News/Detail/1194

[Desmostro]

I read Harley actually sold Agusta back to the Castiglioni Family for â,¬1. (Not $30 million.) after paying off substantial amounts of MV Augusta's debt over their brief holding.

Nice move by Harley 
I just checked with my 6yr old grandaughter who confirmed that Harley had indeed called her for advice. She says she will give more thought to her financial consultations in future, adding that "Hey, you can't win 'em all"

Your grand daughter is a gaawdam genius. I love that girl!

[Privateer]

I read Harley actually sold Agusta back to the Castiglioni Family for â,¬1. (Not $30 million.) after paying off substantial amounts of MV Augusta's debt over their brief holding.

TFS.  I'm curious how much that factored into HD screwing over Erik Buell.  I'm also curious if anyone at HD lost their job over it, or at the very least got an ass chewing.