Just nine days after announcing their ticker symbol, Ferrari (RACE) reached the trading floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), and ended its first full day as a public company with a bang.
On Oct. 21 at 9:30 am, Sergio Marchionne, Chairman of Ferrari, and John Elkann, Chairman of Fiat Chrylser Automobiles (FCA), rang the opening bell in New York City, marking the beginning of the day's trading and the first official day of Ferrari being a publicly traded company. It was estimated that their initial shares would price somewhere between $48 and $52 when the company's value of just under $10 billion was first announced Oct. 12, with most estimating that $50 is where it would land. As it turns out, they priced at the highest estimate of $52 a share. As the Wall Street Journal reported Oct. 21, they traded as high as $60.97 in their first day, a 17 percent increase in their initial price, before closing the day at $55 a share. As of press time, it's trading at a price of $56.75 and has been held steady around $56.50 most all day.
It's undoubtedly exciting to see Ferrari's overall value grow as it becomes a publicly traded company, but many still have concerns about what this might mean for the manufacturer's future.
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The Wall Street Journal's article reports that Marchionne hopes to ramp up production from 7,000 to as many as 9,000 cars per year by 2019, and there's the chance that pressure to grow from investors could push quality down in favor of quantity. That being said, Enzo Ferrari's son Piero will continue to retain a 10 percent ownership stake in the company, leaving many hoping he'll continue to steer the manufacturer in the right direction. Stay with us for more updates from the automotive industry, and find your own prancing horse from our exclusive listings below.
