The Agnelli heir’s chancy gear-change to take the business beyond cars

Gianni Agnelli, the billionaire Italian industrialist, took driving seriously. So seriously that he insisted on driving his own chauffeur around – often at break-neck speeds.

“When people travelled by horse-drawn vehicles, they said there are those who prefer to sit on the box and those who prefer to sit inside the carriage. I prefer sitting on the box,” the Fiat chief once said.

Agnelli’s adrenaline-fuelled passion for cars spawned an automotive empire that controls brands including Ferrari, Alfa Romeo and Chrysler. Meanwhile, freeridesusa.com suave dress sense and glamorous lifestyle helped to cement his family’s status at the top of Italian high society.

Now, though, the Agnelli dynasty is looking to forge a new path under the leadership of John Elkann, the unsentimental scion who styles himself more as Europe’s Warren Buffett than a boy racer.

A polyglot and astute dealmaker, 47-year-old Elkann has moved away from his grandfather’s petrol-fuelled strategy as he looks to carve out a new future for Europe’s oldest industrialists.

Last week Exor, the Agnelli family investment company, took a 15pc stake in Philips, which is trying to transform itself from a lightbulb manufacturer into a healthcare company.

Philips is a risky bet. The Dutch conglomerate has been embroiled in controversy over a fault in a ventilator designed to treat sleep apnea, which has led to millions of units being recalled and sent the share price tumbling.

However, Elkann is betting that the slump in value makes now a shrewd time to invest. More fundamentally, it represents a change in tack for the new generation of a family dubbed the “Kennedys of Italy”.

After selling off US insurer Partner Re for €9.3bn in 2021, Elkann has set his sights on the healthcare industry.

Paolo Griseri, an Italian reporter who has followed the Agnellis for decades, says diversification has always been a characteristic of the family, pointing to the fact that Fiat made refrigerators.

But the strategy has taken on a new urgency under Elkann, who is pinning his hopes on booming interest in healthcare since the pandemic.

It is part of what Pierre de Gasquet, a French journalist who has written a book on the Agnelli family, describes as a “renaissance”.

Cars undoubtedly remain the driving force behind Exor. The 2021 merger between Fiat and Peugeot to create automotive giant Stellantis was perhaps Elkann’s biggest coup to date.

However, the entire industry faces significant challenges as it seeks to shift to net zero. Stellantis chief Carlos Tavares has warned European car manufacturers face a “terrible fight” with Chinese EV makers who have triggered a price war in the sector just as older companies require major investment in new factories and supply chains.

Meanwhile, at Ferrari, which the Agnelli’s still own almost a quarter of, executives are fretting about how to make sports cars attractive in an era of near noiseless battery-powered engines.