Not strictly British car content, but of interest to most British car enthusiasts. Autoweek is reporting that three special commissioners appointed Monday by a Turin, Italy, bankruptcy court have 30 days to evaluate if struggling Italian contract manufacturer Carrozzeria Bertone will have a future.
Bertone stopped volume production in December 2005 and since then has been desperately looking for new work.
In the past two months, two attempts to sell Carrozzeria Bertone failed, pushing the Turin bankruptcy court to appoint the special commissioners.
The three commissioners are:
— Antonio Bene, an engineer and former head of manufacturing at Fiat Auto.
— Stefano Ambrosini, a law professor at the University of Turin, a bankruptcy expert.
— Vincenzo Nicastro, a lawyer from Milan and a financial contracts expert.
After the three commissioners complete their findings for Carrozzeria Bertone in mid-March, the bankruptcy court will have two options:
1. Approve the commissioners’ proposal and let them run Carrozzeria Bertone for one year.
2. Decide that there is no possibility to save the company and put it in liquidation.
If a restructuring plan is approved, the commissioners could apply for the resumption of a state-funded layoff program, which ended at the end of 2007. The program temporarily paid the salaries of the Bertone workers.
Since January, all Carrozzeria Bertone workers are being paid by the company.