It would appear that nobody is immune from the wrath of the recession. Senior management at previously-healthy Ducati have just swallowed a ‘voluntary’10% pay decrease, and have agreed to give up their future bonuses.
Ducati hasn’t revealed sales figures for January 2009, or the final quarter of 2008, but US industry analysts estimate that the factory sold 8,580 bikes here in the States during the whole of 2008, down by nearly 5% from last year’s numbers. This news is even more disturbing when you consider that for the first three quarters of 2009, Ducati had been bragging about how its sales had been unaffected and grew while everyone was starting to feel the credit crunch. That leaves two possibilities: either Ducati had some “liberal” accounting figures, or sales really tapered off in the last quarter of the year.
Whether Ducati will ever release its financial results and worldwide registration figures again is open to question anyway. It is no longer obliged to do so since delisting from the Milan stock exchange in December and moving into the private ownership of the Bonomi family’s investment trust.
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