Motor industry takes new steer on its exotic assets
Visitors to Turin are left in little doubt about the links between the 2006 winter Olympics being held in the city and Fiat, the industrial group headquartered there. Fiat claims to be the biggest sponsor, with its Lancia, Alfa Romeo and Iveco brands taking advantage of the opportunity to link their car and truck marques to successful sports people.
But most of the expected two billion viewers of the Games will miss the closest link between the carmaker and the competitors: Sestriere, the ski resort hosting most of the downhill events, is owned by Fiat.
The resort was built in the 1920s by the Agnelli family, which founded and still controls the company. Fiat said: “They decided it would be nice to have a ski resort for employees to go up to.”
The resort is probably the strangest asset still owned by a car company. Most of the financially important non-core holdings including the first commercial soya milk producer and the largest brand of charcoal briquettes in the US, both developed by Ford Motor have been sold during the industry's many bad times.
Now even operations once deemed essential are being offloaded as US and European carmakers face tougher competition, pension troubles and shareholder pressure. Adam Jonas at Morgan Stanley said: “Putting aside castles and things, there has been a trend towards focusing on the core business. It is no coincidence that these divestitures started as the credit rating downgrades and the pension pressure grew.”
General Motors, the largest carmaker, is a good example. In 1996, to fund a $10bn pension black hole, it sold EDS, the IT consulting business. A year later its defence electronics business was sold and in 1999 it spun off its car-parts operations, creating Delphi. Last year it sold the rest of Hughes Electronics and its remaining defence operations, raising $7bn. It also tried, but failed, to find a buyer for its commercial mortgage lending operations. The company said: “We have basically sold off a lot of assets, right down to the GM building in New York.” All the cash raised recently has gone into filling the black holes in pension and healthcare funds.
Ford followed the trend, spinning off its component operations into Visteon. North America's number-three vehicle group, Chrysler part of DaimlerChrysler has just finished selling or putting into joint ventures almost all its component businesses. It said: “We had to sell everything to get through the bad times.” The process has been going on for some time. GM sold Fridgidaire, the refrigerator maker, in 1979. Ford lost its stately home and 3,000-acre farm bought by Henry Ford, founder of the company, after seeing it on a visit to England.
Now the flotsam of the industry's history remains with a handful of companies. Apart from Sestriere, Fiat owns an 18th-century palace in Turin and a bank in Switzerland, as well as La Stampa newspaper.
MG Rover, the British carmaker, owns Studley Castle in Warwickshire, once used as a horticultural college for women.
Jaguar, owned by Ford, has a 23-acre farm next to its factory in Coventry, in the Midlands, which has been leased for a peppercorn rent to the same family since Sir William Lyons, founder of the company, bought it in 1960. Jaguar said: “Historically it has been gathered and it is difficult to explain. Maybe he thought one day he would need it.”
Now that almost all the carmakers are under shareholder scrutiny, few are willing to splash out on castles, farms or ski resorts.
But there are exceptions. A decade ago, flush with cash, Volkswagen built an upmarket hotel and theme park next to its Wolfsburg headquarters in Germany, which it still owns. Munich-based BMW at present highly profitable is building a BMW Welt theme park near its headquarters.
The motor industry is a big research and development spender as it strives to turn new ideas into moneyspinners. Companies are spending billions of dollars developing hydrogen power. But other technologies are on the way.
At least one of them seems to take Ford back to one of its earlier R&D efforts.
In 1940 Henry Ford unveiled a car body made out of soyabean-derived plastic, and beans were used as raw material for each car's paint, oil and plastic parts. That ended with the era of cheap oil.
Now Ford and Japan's Toyota are beginning to develop plastics made from plants. Others are looking at alternative fuels and increasingly sophisticated satellite navigation systems. The motor industry may yet find itself acquiring a another crop of strange assets. 汽车业的另类资产
拜访都灵的人，对于将在这座城市举办的 2006 年冬季奥运会以及菲亚特 (Fiat) 之间的关联，几乎没什么疑问。菲亚特是一家总部在当地的工业集团，它声称要成为最大的赞助商，让旗下蓝旗亚 (lancia) 、阿尔法?罗密欧 (Alfa Romeo) 及依维柯 (iveco) 等品牌利用这个机遇，把它们的汽车和卡车品牌与成功的体育界人士联系起来。
但在预计 20 亿奥运会观众里，大多数人不会意识到，这家汽车制造商与奥运选手之间最紧密的联系是：承办大部分下坡赛的滑雪胜地塞斯特里 (Sestriere) 为菲亚特所有。
这个滑雪胜地是由阿涅利 (Agnelli) 家族在上世纪 20 年代建造的。该家族现在仍然控制着菲亚特公司。菲亚特表示：“他们认为，有一处公司员工可以前往的滑雪胜地是件很不错的事。”
这或许是一家汽车公司拥有的最奇怪的资产。大多数财政上举足轻重的非核心物业，包括福特汽车 (Ford Motor) 建立的美国第一家豆奶生产商和最大的木炭品牌，都已在汽车业低迷时期被出售。
如今，随着欧美汽车制造商面临更激烈的竞争、养老金问题和股东压力，就连一些一度被认为不可缺少的业务，也开始被售出。摩根士丹利 (Morgan Stanley) 的亚当?乔纳斯 (Adam Jonas) 说：“撇开城堡和其它东西，现在已经有种专注于核心业务的趋势。当债信评级下降而养老金压力增大时，此类资产剥离就会开始，这并非巧合。”
最大的汽车生产商通用汽车 (General Motors) 就是个很好的例子。 1996 年，为了填补 100 亿美元的养老金黑洞，通用卖掉了它的信息技术 (IT) 咨询业务电子数据系统公司 (EDS) 。一年以后，它出售了国防电子业务， 1999 年又把汽车部件业务剥离出去，从而导致德尔福的产生。去年，它卖掉了休斯电子 (Hughes Electronics) 的剩余部分及余下的国防业务，筹得 70 亿美元。通用还试图为它的商业按揭贷款业务找到买主，但未能成功。通用表示：“我们基本上卖掉了很多资产，直到纽约的通用汽车大厦 (GM building) 。”最近筹集的所有现金，都被用于填补养老金和保健基金的黑洞。
福特追随了这个潮流，把它的零部件业务分拆出来建立了 Visteon 。戴姆勒克莱斯勒 (Daimlerchrysler) 的克莱斯勒部门是北美第三大汽车集团，该部门刚把名下所有零部件业务或出售、或归并到合资企业中。该部门表示：“我们必须卖掉一切，以度过难关。”这个过程已经持续了一段时间。通用汽车在 1979 年卖掉了冰箱制造商 Fridgidaire 。福特失去了其宏伟的本部大楼和 3000 英亩农场。这个农场是公司创建者亨利?福特 (Henry Ford) 在前往英国的途中看到后买下的。
现在，只有屈指可数的几家公司还保留着这些汽车业的历史旧物。除了塞斯特里，菲亚特还在都灵拥有一座 18 世纪的宫殿，在瑞士有一家银行，此外还拥有报纸《 La Stampa 》。
英国汽车生产商罗孚 (MG Rover) 在沃里克郡拥有 Studley 城堡，该城堡曾经是女子园艺学院。
福特 (Ford) 旗下的捷豹 (Jaguar) 拥有一个 23 英亩的农场，位于其英格兰中部考文垂工厂的旁边。 1960 年公司创始人威廉?莱昂斯 (William Lyons) 爵士买下这个农场，自那以来，该农场就以象征性的租金租给莱昂斯家族使用。捷豹表示：“租金一直在收取，很难解释原因，可能他觉得自己有朝一日会需要这个农场。”
现在，几乎所有的汽车生产商都受到股东的严格审查，几乎没有哪家公司愿意在城堡、农场或滑雪胜地上大肆挥霍。
但也有例外。 10 年前，现金充裕的大众 (Volkswagen) 在德国沃尔夫斯堡总部旁边建造了一个高档酒店及主题公园，至今公司仍拥有这片产业。总部位于慕尼黑的宝马 (BMW) 目前赢利丰厚，公司正在其总部附近建造一个宝马世界 (BMW Welt) 主题公园。
汽车业在研发方面支出巨大，因为它努力要把新创意变成摇钱树。各公司正花费数十亿美元开发氢动力。但其他技术也在开发之中。
其中至少有一项技术，似乎将把福特带回其早先的一个研发努力。
亨利?福特 (Henry Ford) 在 1940 年展现了一款由大豆提成塑料制成的车身，每部车的油漆、油和塑料部件都以豆类为原材料。那终结了廉价油的时代。
现在福特和日本丰田 (Toyota) 正开始开发用植物制成的塑料。其它公司着眼于替代性燃料和日益精密的卫星导航系统。汽车业可能会发现，自己正在购买另一种奇怪的资产。
