A Wall Street Journal blog post today reported that Harley-Davidson received 3 Euros (about 3 U.S. dollars) for MV when it sold the Italian sportbike company back to Claudio Castiglioni, who H-D bought it from in 2008 for $109 million. In addition, Harley “contributed 20 million Euros to MV as operating capital” that was put in escrow and would be available to Castiglioni over the next year.
The WSJ post contains a historical footnote about another time Harley-Davidson bought an Italian motorcycle manufacturer. In the 1960s H-D acquired a stake in Aermacchi, and eventually bought the entire company before selling it in the late 1970s. The seller and buyer of Aermacchi? Claudio Castiglioni and his brother Gianfranco.
I nominate Claudio Castiglioni as Svengali of the decade!
ReplyDeleteWhat is wrong with them? ... Oh it's not an antiquated v-twin, we dont want anything to do with it. I love Harleys and with their marketing muscle could have made a go wit MV. This reminds me of the high school Ford vs. Checy battle.
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