If Fiat's automobile manufacturing activities are spun out of the Fiat Group and merged with Opel, the Agnelli family's stake may not necessarily be diluted according to Gianluigi Gabetti, the chairman of family holding Giovanni Agnelli & Co. and honorary chairman of Exor.

Fiat CEO Sergio Marchionne is driving forward an ambitious plan to spin off Fiat Group Automobiles (which comprises of the Fiat, Fiat Professional, Lancia, Alfa Romeo and Abarth brands) and merge it with GM Europe's Opel/Vauxhall unit and - possibly - its niche Saab brand. Fiat will also include its recently acquired 20 percent stake in US carmaker Chrysler LLC in this new entity.

The Agnelli family, which built Fiat into an international powerhouse, still control the Italian carmaker's fortunes through a 30.45 percent stake held by its stockmarket listed Exor investment vehicle. The merger of Fiat with Opel has raised the spectre that the family will emerge with a very diluted stake in the new entity. However Gabetti, who is also the honorary chairman of Exor, said yesterday that this might not be the case. "The dilution of Exor's stake [in the merged entity] is not to be taken for granted," he was reported by Reuters as saying yestready. The family's resulting shareholding would depend on how the spin-off was conducted and also on other shareholdings in the new company.

Exor was formed on March 1 through the merger of the Agnelli family's two previous investment vehicles, IFIL and IFI. The family's own company Agnelli & Co. owns 59.1 percent of Exor's ordinary stock and 39.2 percent of preferred stock. At March 31 Exor had a market capitalisation of 3,708 billion euros. As well as its 30.45 percent stake in the Fiat Group, other key investments include in the financial services sector: Intesa Sanpaolo (Shareholding recently reduced to 0.74 pct), Vision Investment Management (40 pct), Perella Weinberg partners (1.96 pct) and Gruppo Banca Leonardo (9.4 pct); in the real estate sector: Cushman & Wakefield (71.81 pct); in the business services sector: SGS (15 pct); in the paper sector: Sequana (26.65 pct); and in the tourism and entertainment sector: Juventus FC (60 pct); Alpitour World (100 pct) and Banijay (17.03 pct).

The Exor group has just announced that it has ended the first quarter of 2009 with a loss of 152.8 million euros compared to the same period last year which 2008 closed with a consolidated profit of 90.7 million euros of which 61.5 million euros was attributable to the equity holders of the company and 29.2 million euros to the minority interest of the then subsidiary IFIL. Fiat Group vice-chairman John Elkann is the chairman of Exor.