The Fiat auto group yesterday reported a net loss of €21 million in the first quarter of 2010 instead of an expected return to profit, at a landmark point in its history.
The group was also expected to unveil its keenly awaited 2010-2014 industrial plan, the day after announcing a big change in top management.
The industrial giant, which recorded a net loss of €411 million in the first quarter of 2009, lost €283 million in the last quarter of 2009.
That took the loss for the whole of last year to €848 million, in a context of violent upheaval in the global auto industry.
Many analysts expect Fiat to announce the first steps towards spinning off its car division - which includes the iconic Ferrari, Lancia, Alfa Romeo and Maserati brands - from the rest of the group.
Fiat, best known for its cars, also owns the Iveco truck maker and Case New Holland, which manufactures agricultural machines.
The group's board of directors yesterday formally named John Elkann, the grandson of historic leader Gianni Agnelli, to the chairmanship of the auto giant.
The stock market saw the move as a sign that a spinoff will go forward, and the group's share price surged 9.28 per cent to €10.42 on Tuesday.
A spinoff of the car division would facilitate a merger with US carmaker Chrysler, in which Fiat owns a 20 per cent stake.
Depending on its architecture, a spinoff could reduce the Agnelli family stake to a minority.
Sales rose by 14.7 per cent to €12.9 billion in the first quarter, a company statement said, calling 2010 "a year of transition and stabilisation".
The company said it sold 532,400 cars and light commercial vehicles in the first quarter, a 14.6-per cent increase compared with the same period a year earlier.
The group is expected to present new car models and discuss its cooperation with Chrysler when it unveils its 2010-14 industrial plan.
Fiat acquired its 20 per cent stake in the then-bankrupt Chrysler last year in exchange for clean-car and small-car technology.
The deal also made maverick industrialist Sergio Marchionne, who has been chief executive officer of Fiat since 2004, the head of the US group.
In its 2010 forecast, Fiat said it "expects all of its sectors to improve performance over the prior year, with the exception of the automobiles business."
Car sales will be affected by the reduction or elimination of "cash-for-clunkers" programmes, it said, saying such government incentives "underpin demand in western Europe".
The group forecasts sales in 2010 in excess of €50 billion, "net profit near break-even" and a net industrial debt above €5 billion, the statement said.
Mr Elkann was groomed for years by his late grandfather as the future leader of the Fiat group, Italy's largest private employer with a national workforce of some 80,000.