Turin Club Goes Public
July 19, 2001
TURIN, Italy (AP) -- Juventus of Turin, Italy's most successful club, is going public.
IFI, the holding company of the Agnelli family that owns the team, said Thursday that 35 percent of Juventus shares will become publicly traded on the Italian stock market.
Terms of initial public offering will be handled by Istituto Mobiliare Italiano, a merchant bank. IFI, Istituto Finanziario Italiano, currently controls 99.6 percent of Juventus shares.
Juventus has won a record 25 Italian League titles. Current champion AS Roma and 2001 champion Lazio of Rome already are publicly traded.
Juventus recently invested about $77 million to sign Italian national team goalkeeper GianLuigi Buffon from Parma and Czech midfielder Pavel Nedved from Lazio.
However the Turin club obtained $91 million from the sale of Zinedine Zidane to Spain's Real Madrid and Italian forward Filippo Inzaghi to AC Milan.
The Agnelli family also controls Fiat, Italy's largest private industrial company.
