Agnelli’s Goodbye Spells Trouble for Italy’s Investments Push

Italy’s most iconic business clan is moving abroad, and it couldn’t have come at a worse time for Prime Minister Matteo Renzi.

First it was Fiat, then Ferrari. On Saturday, the Agnelli family, the ultimate symbol of Italy’s industrial might, voted at a shareholders’ meeting to move its Exor holding company to the Netherlands, severing ties with Turin, where it founded carmaker Fiat in 1899. While the family’s current head John Elkann denies the move is related to Italy’s sliding attractiveness, business leaders wonder if Renzi can keep and lure investors.