With revenues of €6.6 billion, profits of €436 million, 31,300 employees, 18 plants in 12 countries, and a stock market value of €4.6 billion, the Pirelli Group led by Marco Tronchetti Provera and controlled since 2015 together with the Chinese state-owned Sinochem group, is running a serious risk, that is isolation in Western markets. This could be the result of the abrupt change of course of the Chinese partner that, contrary to the original pact that provided for the preservation of Italianness at every company level, would now like to bend its strategies by explicitly recalling the line dictated by the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party, with an obvious hetero-direction on the part of the latter. From the mass of documents filed with the Golden Power, Beijing's call for all business units in the group to adopt "guidelines of the 20th Congress on labor and professional talents, aimed at increasing the level of political control and the composition of management cadres", emerges without a shadow of a doubt. In addition, the integration of Pirelli subsidiaries' IT systems in China with Sinochem's systems to enable simultaneous information sharing is being urged: there is a clear intent to appropriate the sophisticated technologies that have taken Pirelli to the top of innovation worldwide. A further escalation of tensions with China could lead the European Union and other countries close to U.S. positions, such as Japan, South Korea, and Australia (largely served by production from Pirelli's Chinese plants), to activate sanctions that would deeply penalize the Italian company.
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