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.
菲亚特(Fiat)的老板塞尔吉奥•马尔乔内(Sergio Marchionne)称，这家汽车制造商正在以“光速”努力，力求终结其在欧洲市场的亏损。投资者尽管不想显得太不领情，却可能不敢苟同。该集团周三报告，其2012年税前利润为20亿欧元（这符合预期），以固定汇率计算的销售增长8%，达840亿欧元。但税前利润完全归功于该集团控股58.5%的子公司克莱斯勒(Chrysler)，后者在数小时前公布了自己2012年的可信业绩。如果没有这家美国汽车制造商的帮助，菲亚特将出现6.2亿欧元的税前亏损，2012年营运利润同比减少7亿欧元。从税后水平看，其（在克莱斯勒辅助下的）