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.
飛雅特(Fiat)的老闆塞爾吉奧•馬爾喬內(Sergio Marchionne)稱，這家汽車製造商正在以「光速」努力，力求終結其在歐洲市場的虧損。投資者儘管不想顯得太不領情，卻可能不敢苟同。該集團週三報告，其2012年稅前利潤爲20億歐元（這符合預期），以固定匯率計算的銷售成長8%，達840億歐元。但稅前利潤完全歸功於該集團控股58.5%的子公司克萊斯勒(Chrysler)，後者在數小時前公佈了自己2012年的可信業績。如果沒有這家美國汽車製造商的幫助，飛雅特將出現6.2億歐元的稅前虧損，2012年營運利潤同比減少7億歐元。從稅後水準看，其（在克萊斯勒輔助下的）