End of the race for Miacar. The Italian marketplace for new cars is in liquidation
MiaCar, a startup founded in 2017 by Lorenzo Sistino, acquired in May two years ago by Facile.it, has been put into liquidation. All the details
Sometimes fate can be mocking. In fact, if you search for news online about Miacar and the sad fate that awaits it, one of the few articles returned by search engines is an old interview with the founder of the startup, Lorenzo Sistino (no pimpled boy, as often happens in the sector, but a man who knows a lot about cars, having started working at Fiat in 1987 in Marketing and Sales, in particular for the Lancia brand and light commercial vehicles. In 2002 he was appointed Head of Commercial Operations of the Light Business Unit Commercial Vehicles of Fiat, then the presidency of Iveco without forgetting the role of general manager in Pirelli) dating back to the time of the exit and therefore with enthusiastic tones: «I, a former Marchionne boy, sold my car startup to Facile.it» . In May 2021, the Piedmontese car e-commerce site was in fact purchased by Facile.it , the insurance broker, active in the comparison of insurance, financial products and more. The founder had however retained the position of CEO. Just two years after that operation, Lorenzo Sistino will now be forced to liquidate his old startup, according to a preview report by Affari Italiani.
THE SALE OF FACILE.IT
The beginning of the end can be found not only in the startup's accounts, which deteriorated rapidly in the same period in which Motor K closed two capital increases, between equity and debt, of 15 million ( the last one at the end of October), but also especially in the change of ownership of Facile.it, which in June 2022 was sold by the Swedish Eqt and the English fund Oakley to Silver Lake, a US private equity firm founded in Menlo Park, for over a billion euros, thus becoming one of the very rare unicorns italics. A sale which, however, mortgaged the future of the Piedmontese startup.
“So much so – it is reported in Affari Italiani – that a meeting where the only shareholder (Facile.it Insurance Broker controlled by Silver Lake) was present took place in Milan in front of the notary Mauro Grandi and at which the administrator Alessandro was present Tallia (CFO of Facile.it) decided on the early dissolution of Miacar and its liquidation , appointing Sistino as liquidator with a gross compensation of 30 thousand euros.”
MIACAR'S NUMBERS
But, it was said, there are also balance sheets that have deteriorated rapidly. The numbers that had convinced Facile.it to purchase were different from today's ones: MiaCar had closed 2020 with a total value of production growing to 1,274,681 euros, compared to 1,039,035 euros in 2019. The year of the pandemic had contributed to reducing the red to 290,014 euros, compared to the loss of 470,295 euros in 2019. The costs had amounted to 1,608,692 euros. Only in 2022 did the turnover do better, closing at 1.3 million, but with losses of 2.4 million.
LIQUIDATION
According to Affari Italiani , in 2022 Miacar had a turnover of 691 thousand euros with losses of 1 million. “The point is that the accumulated and unpaid losses were already 3.5 million and this caused the net worth to fall into negative by over a million”. Faced with similar numbers, Silver Lake has evidently decided not to put more money on the table or proceed with capital increases through new partners to reduce liabilities and reconstitute the capital.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/smartcity/fine-corsa-per-miacar-in-liquidazione-il-marketplace-italiano-di-automobili-nuove/ on Wed, 08 Nov 2023 09:07:41 +0000.