De Tomaso's unemployed workforce urges Turin to find a new future for the factory

The Hong Kong investment fund Ideal Team Venture acquired this Thursday the Italian manufacturer De Tomaso, known for its sports cars of the sixties and seventies, for €1.05 million. The Asian entity provided the money before 1 May, the deadline for the payment, thus easing the doubts of the most skeptical analysts, who still saw the possibility that the agreement would come to nothing, as the three previous ones had.

The lawyer representing Ideal Team, Giampaolo Salsi, told the Italian media last week that the company intends to resume production of De Tomaso cars in China. These plans leave the 822 workers who made up the workforce of its factory in Grugliasco, a town in the metropolitan area of Turin, unemployed and uncertain about their future. The town’s authorities have been forced to become the administrators of the facilities.

The governor of the Piedmont region, to which Turin belongs, and president of the Conference of Regions of Italy, Sergio Chiamparino, stated this Wednesday that this was the “most serious” bankruptcy in the history of the area, given the number of people who have been left without jobs. The metalworkers’ union FIOM-CGIL, which supports them, and the employers’ lobby Confindustria are now pressing the regional leaders to find a solution that helps the former employees and returns activity to the Grugliasco plant.

Chiamparino has already confirmed that the parties will meet on 13 May and will discuss possible solutions amid a climate of lukewarm economic recovery in Italy after three years of recession. The secretary of FIOM-CGIL, Federico Bellono, has pointed out that the unions will propose that Turin offer tax advantages to companies that hire the oldest workers, since they will be the ones facing the greatest difficulties in finding a new position.

Optimistic prospects envisage that another player in the industrial sector, preferably dedicated to the automotive field, will show interest in the site previously owned by the car design firm Pininfarina. In a little over five years, the Grugliasco team has barely been able to work in the business under the leadership of De Tomaso Automobili SpA, a company founded in 2011 by the Turin entrepreneur Gian Mario Rossignolo through his company Innovation in Auto Industry SpA, which has owned the De Tomaso rights since 2009.

Via | Automotive News
Photo | Lettera 43