It's true that economic performance was hardly flamboyant either. Sales grew only modestly, from €5.9bn to €6.8bn between 2017 and 2024, while operating profit rose from €738m to €947m over the period; while pressure remains strong on its cash flow.
Although higher than Goodyear or Sumitomo, Pirelli's margins and profitability remain lower than those of Michelin or Bridgestone. Meanwhile, its dividend per share seems to have reached a ceiling since 2023; it was €0.218 that year, compared with €0.198 in 2024.
Yesterday, the Italian group was supposed to convene its Board of Directors for the Annual General Meeting, but at the very last minute had to postpone the meeting until the next day - i.e. today.
The reason given for the postponement was an emergency situation: the Board would be asking Sinochem - Pirelli's largest shareholder with 37% of the capital - to reduce its stake to a lower level than that of Camfin - the holding company of Italian businessman Tronchetti Provera, who was the group's Managing Director for a huge thirty years.
The official reason cited was a commercial risk in the US market, where Pirelli generates a quarter of its sales. A shareholder base dominated by the Chinese chemical group - which took a stake in the company in 2015 - would apparently look bad there.
MarketScreener is able to reveal that behind this pretext lies a far more prosaic reality, namely a cut-throat power struggle - an authentic Florentine intrigue - between Tronchetti Provera and Sinochem. The former, whose cunning reputation is well established, intends to retain total control over a group that he still perceives as virtually his own private property.
A master in the art of deploying cunning strategies of influence and control - control which he has so far managed to exert over Pirelli without holding a majority stake - Provera had already succeeded in shortcircuiting his Chinese partners two years ago, when the Italian government intervened to limit the powers of Sinochem shareholders.
Until then, the shrewd businessman had been walking a tightrope with a very clear aim: to use Sinochem's backing in the tire manufacturer's capital to gain market share in China, while not ceding any ground in terms of control over the group.
Well-placed sources close to the case and to MarketScreener's team of analysts recently told us that the Chinese no longer intend to be taken for a ride in this way. Today's board meeting therefore promises to be electric.
Although Tronchetti Provera had tried to show Sinochem that he cared by stepping down as Managing Director, no one was fooled by Tronchetti Provera's show. His replacement Andrea Casaluc, after all, has long been one of his most loyal lieutenants.
The case of Pirelli is actually fairly typical of what can be observed following capital mergers between major Italian and international groups. The examples of EssilorLuxottica, Telecom Italia and Generali are cases in point.
