Fiat boss Sergio Marchionne says the carmaker is working “at the speed of light” to vanquish its European losses. Investors, without wishing to seem ungrateful, may beg to differ. On Wednesday, the group unveiled a pre-tax profit of €2bn for 2012 – much as expected – on sales 8 per cent higher in constant currencies at €84bn. But the black ink was solely thanks to 58.5 per cent-owned affiliate Chrysler, which had posted its own, creditable results for 2012 just hours earlier. Without the US carmaker’s help, Fiat would have made a €620m pre-tax deficit, with trading profits down about €700m year on year in 2012. At the after-tax level, its actual (Chrysler-aided) €1.4bn profit would have turned into a €1bn loss for Fiat alone.
菲亞特(Fiat)的老板塞爾吉奧?馬爾喬內(Sergio Marchionne)稱，這家汽車制造商正在以“光速”努力，力求終結其在歐洲市場的虧損。投資者盡管不想顯得太不領情，卻可能不敢茍同。該集團周三報告，其2012年稅前利潤為20億歐元（這符合預期），以固定匯率計算的銷售增長8%，達840億歐元。但稅前利潤完全歸功于該集團控股58.5%的子公司克萊斯勒(Chrysler)，后者在數小時前公布了自己2012年的可信業績。如果沒有這家美國汽車制造商的幫助，菲亞特將出現6.2億歐元的稅前虧損，2012年營運利潤同比減少7億歐元。從稅后水平看，其（在克萊斯勒輔助下的）