Fiat profit more than doubled in fourth quarter

New Orleans Sun (IANS) Friday 3rd February, 2012

Fiat, Italy's largest carmaker, said its profit from the last three months of 2011 more than doubled on the strength of American car giant Chrysler, of which it owns almost 59 percent.

The group's fourth-quarter trading profit, or earnings before interest, taxes and one-time items, more than doubled to 765 million euros. Revenue also rose more than two-fold to 19.6 billion euros in the fourth quarter.

The Turin-based manufacturer also forecast that Chrysler will boost its 2012 profit to between 3.8 billion euros and 4.5 billion euros from 2.39 billion euros in 2011.

Fiat has included Chrysler's performance in its results since June.

Fiat and Chrysler chief executive officer Sergio Marchionne says he aims to combine Italy's top car company with the America's No.3 by the end of 2014 to create "critical mass".

Separately, Fiat Industrial, the truck and farm equipment business Fiat spun off in 2011, said fourth-quarter net profit slumped 13 percent as sales of commercial vehicles showed signs of a slowdown during the second half of the year.

Net profit fell 13 percent to 144 million euros during the final three months of last year, Fiat announced in a statement.

For the entire year, the company said it had net income almost doubled to 701 million euros, compared with 378 million euros in 2010.

--IANS/AKI

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