Carlyle is buying the aerospace arm of the troubled Fiat group, Fiat Avio, with an Italian partner.
La Stampa, a Turin-based daily owned by the Fiat group (itself controlled by the Agnelli family, which usually gets along with whoever runs Italy), commented cautiously and variously.
The alliance would also allow Fiat Group and Chrysler to take advantage of each other's distribution networks and to optimize fully their respective manufacturing footprint and global supplier base.
And as a student he had worked during the holidays in various factories belonging to the Fiat group: on a car-production line in Poland, in a dealership in France and in a component factory in the English Midlands, where he boarded with a very ordinary English family.
He joined with Italy's Agnelli family, which controls the Fiat industrial group, in a friendly counter-bid for Worms.
The same is true of Italy's Fiat, a group owned by the Agnelli family, which is also struggling with heavy debts and poor day-to-day performance, notably in its car-making business.
Reintroducing Fiat cars to Americans is an intensely personal mission for the sprightly 38-year-old marketing whiz whose knack for tapping into consumer lifestyles outside of traditional advertising venues caught the eye of Sergio Marchionne, the chief executive of both Fiat Autos SpA and Chrysler Group.
Unless Mr Marchionne can pull off a dramatic improvement in Fiat's fortunes, the group will face some stark choices.
Only four years ago Fiat, Italy's biggest industrial group, had the look of a company that had given up the will to live.
If it fails with Rover, it may still have to merge with a big group, such as Volkswagen or Fiat.
Investors piled into Fiat shares in the belief it would be easier for the group to sell its loss-making car manufacturer once the founder's grandson was no longer at the helm.
Mr Agnelli had adopted a strategy of nursing Fiat's core car business back to health, but the group remains under pressure to put the auto unit up for sale.
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