David Rosenthal

...felt like it was the solution that made sense.

His passion was Ferrari.

His history was there.

He could go back to running it and be very happy.

And Sergio could leave it alone and continue running the Fiat Empire.

But once Sergio needs the cash to pay down the Chrysler debt and turns to Ferrari, they're on a collision course.

Because IPO-ing Ferrari is like completely anathema to Luca's way of being.

Becoming a public company means you've got to deliver consistent, predictable growth, which means hitting a drumbeat of success.

Shipping more cars, making more models, adding more clients, raising prices.

It's not like Luca doesn't want to do these things in a vacuum, but he wants to do these things very thoughtfully and over an extended period of time, not on a Wall Street calendar.

Yep.

I mean, hell, one of Luca's very first actions when he came back to Ferrari after Enzo's death was to cut production by half.

Right, right.

Can you imagine doing that as a publicly traded company?

Yeah, making it announced to Wall Street like, oh, hey, we think the right thing to do next year is to cut our production by half.

Hope you're with us.

Well, so here's what happens.

Thanks to the Chrysler acquisition...

It's not an option not to pay down the debt.

The company, Fiat, the empire has to get the money.