By Mauro Orru and Sarah Sloat

The holding company of Italy's powerful Agnelli family is selling part of its stake in Ferrari in a bid to raise billions of dollars to pursue a sizeable acquisition and launch a share buyback program.

Exor said late Wednesday that it planned to sell a stake of about 4% in the Italian luxury sports-car maker for roughly 3 billion euros ($3.15 billion). The company said it had already priced an accelerated bookbuild offering of roughly 7 million common shares which it expects to settle on March 3.

It commands a 24.9% stake and 36.7% of voting rights in Ferrari, making it the carmaker's single largest shareholder. The sale will trim its stake and take its voting rights to about 30%, but Exor said it remained fully committed as a long-term shareholder of the company.

Exor has a long history of investing in companies that the Agnelli family sees as promising. It also wields prominent stakes in Jeep maker car maker Stellantis, Dutch health-technology company Royal Philips and machinery maker CNH Industrial.

The company said the Ferrari stake sale would help reduce concentration within its portfolio and raise funds to pursue a sizeable new acquisition as well as a share buyback program of 1 billion euros.

Exor shares were up more than 2% in European morning trading, while Ferrari stock was down more than 6%.

Ferrari said Thursday that it had agreed to buy back shares valued at $314.6 million from Exor in a transaction that would be financed by cash on hand.

The carmaker said the transaction was part of the multiyear share-buyback program of approximately 2 billion euros announced at its 2022 capital markets day.

Write to Mauro Orru at mauro.orru@wsj.com and Sarah Sloat at sarah.sloat@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

February 27, 2025 03:19 ET (08:19 GMT)

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