Published : Dec. 17, 2014 - 20:43
NEW YORK (AFP) ― U.S. automaker Chrysler unveiled Tuesday its new name, FCA US LLC, reflecting its subsidiary status to newly renamed Italian parent Fiat Italy SpA.
Until now, the company, the smallest of the “Big Three” U.S. automakers including General Motors and Ford Motor, was known as the Chrysler Group.
The company was gradually acquired by Turin-based Fiat after emerging in June 2009 from a U.S. government-backed bankruptcy restructuring and bailout. Fiat fully completed the acquisition of Chrysler in January 2014, making Fiat the seventh-largest automaker in the world by annual vehicle sales.
Chrysler CEO Sergio Marchionne. (Bloomberg)
Fiat renamed itself Fiat Chrysler Automobiles in October when it switched its headquarters to the Netherlands and listed on the New York Stock Exchange.
On Tuesday, FCA announced it had changed its name to FCA Italy SpA, effective Monday. It trades on the NYSE under the ticker FCAU.
The new name “is intended to emphasize the fact that all group companies worldwide are part of a single organization,” the parent company said in a statement.
Other subsidiary companies in other operating regions will undergo a similar name change over the next few months, it said.
Chrysler, in a separate statement, said its name change does not affect its headquarters in Auburn Hills, Michigan, its management team or brands, including Chrysler, Jeep and Dodge.
The company, founded by Walter Chrysler in 1925, employs more than 77,000 people worldwide, with 96 percent of them based in North America.