Sinochem has cut its holding in Pirelli by 14 percent of the share capital, selling to Lumina Crown, the investment vehicle of the Czech industrialist Michal Strnad. The Chinese group's stake falls from 34.1 percent to 20.1 percent, which leaves Lumina Crown as the third shareholder and returns Camfin, the vehicle of Marco Tronchetti Provera, to the top of the register with 26.5 percent.
The size of the block is the part that gives the transaction its weight. Euronext data put it at 151,883,471 shares changing hands at 6.50 euros each, a consideration of roughly 987 million euros. In a single trade the balance of a company listed on Euronext Milan moved from a Chinese state group towards its Italian founder shareholder and a new European investor.
Strnad said the investment reflected confidence in Pirelli's strategy, its management team and its ability to keep generating sustainable long term value for all stakeholders, and described the purchase as consistent with a strategy of backing companies of excellence that combine leadership positions with strong fundamentals.
The buyer is not a conventional industrial partner for a tyremaker. Strnad owns Czechoslovak Group, the Czech holding company built on ammunition, military vehicles and defence equipment, now the country's second largest listed company at a market value of 19.24 billion dollars. His fortune reached about 30 billion dollars after the group's Amsterdam listing in January raised 4.5 billion dollars, one of the largest flotations the defence sector has seen, before the shares lost more than half their value in May following a report from the short seller Hunterbrook Capital.
For Pirelli the immediate effect is governance rather than operations. A shareholder register that had been dominated by Sinochem for a decade now has three centres of gravity, and the questions that follow are about board balance and strategic direction rather than about tyres.