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Iveco

Immagine dalla pubblicazione di Il Post
From a publication by Il Post, 2025-07-30

Iveco is the Italian manufacturer of industrial vehicles founded in 1975 within the FIAT group from the merger of five truck makers: Fiat Veicoli Industriali, OM, Lancia Veicoli Speciali, the French company Unic and the German company Magirus-Deutz.[1] Over half a century it has become one of the leading players in the sector, with industrial vehicles, buses, quarry vehicles and rescue vehicles sold in more than a hundred countries.[1] For Turin it was for a long time one of the major companies of the old Fiat group controlled by the Agnelli family, which through Exor announced its sale in 2025 to the Indian group Tata Motors.[2]

Five brands, one company

In the mid-1970s the Turin-based group brought together under a single company the truck brands it owned in Italy and abroad: alongside the Fiat brand came OM, the special vehicles division of Lancia, Unic in France and Magirus-Deutz in Germany.[3] In the following decade the company grew through agreements and acquisitions: in 1986 the Iveco Ford Truck joint venture was established in Great Britain, with the Italian company holding 52%, and in the same year the Italian company Astra, specialized in heavy trucks, was acquired; in 1990 the Spanish company Pegaso followed.[3] Already in the 1980s Iveco had been among the first European groups to gain a foothold in China.[4]

Buses also had a separate history. In 1999 Iveco's bus division merged on equal terms with that of the French company Renault VI, creating Irisbus; in 2013 the brand was absorbed into the new Iveco Bus.[3] With the closure of Irisbus, bus production in Italy came to an end.[4]

From Fiat Industrial to CNH Industrial

In January 2011 Fiat split into two listed companies: on one side cars, on the other Fiat Industrial, which brought together trucks (Iveco), agricultural and earth-moving machinery (CNH).[5] From that reorganization Iveco emerged as wholly controlled by Fiat Industrial.[1] On its first day of trading the new stock closed up 3.05%.[5]

In May 2012 Sergio Marchionne, chairman of Fiat Industrial, announced the merger with CNH Global into a new holding company that would integrate agricultural machinery, engines (FPT Industrial) and commercial vehicles, with its registered office in the Netherlands and its primary listing on the New York Stock Exchange.[6] He stated that "the capital structure will change but not the operational set-up."[6] The following year it emerged that the new company intended to have tax residence in the United Kingdom: according to documents filed with the U.S. securities regulator, it intended to "operate in such a way as to be treated as resident in the United Kingdom for tax purposes."[7]

The negotiations with FAW and the 2022 spin-off

At the start of 2021, while it was part of CNH Industrial, news spread of a possible sale of Iveco to the Chinese manufacturer FAW, the largest in China and a long-standing partner of Volkswagen and Toyota. The Turin branch of the Fim Cisl union requested an urgent meeting with CNH Industrial, pointing out that Iveco employed more than ten thousand people in Italy, with expertise concentrated in Turin and a network of component suppliers.[4] The union warned that the "significant investments in research into new propulsion systems and the project to create a hydrogen hub cannot be put at risk."[4]

The sale to the Chinese did not go through. On 1 January 2022 Iveco Group was established as an independent company, through a spin-off from CNH Industrial.[3] Among the group's offices are Turin-based functions, such as technology and digital activities and the trucks business unit.[8]

The fiftieth anniversary and the sale to Tata

In 2025, the year of its fiftieth anniversary, the group sold the historic Magirus brand to the Mutares fund.[3] On 30 July of that same year Exor, the Agnelli family's investment company, reached an agreement with the Indian multinational Tata Motors for the sale of Iveco: a deal worth about €3.8 billion, carried out through a public tender offer and intended to delist the shares from the Milan Stock Exchange.[2] The defence division, Iveco Defence, was spun off and sold separately to the Italian company Leonardo for €1.7 billion.[2] The sale of Iveco Defence, which includes the IDV and Astra military vehicles, is set to be recorded by the group in 2026.[3]

In Turin the sale was read as the latest chapter in the shrinking manufacturing presence of the old Fiat group in Piedmont: the diocesan weekly La Voce e il Tempo described it as the most recent confirmation of a decades-long trend, noting that only civilian production was passing to the Indians of Tata.[9]

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Related articles: Lancia

Sources

  1. Treccani — 1 January 2012
  2. Il Post — 30 July 2025
  3. Iveco Group
  4. La Voce e il Tempo — 14 January 2021
  5. Il Post — 3 January 2011
  6. Il Post — 30 May 2012
  7. Il Post — 22 May 2013
  8. Iveco Group
  9. La Voce e il Tempo — 16 August 2025

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