Brent Snavely

Detroit Free Press

CEO Marchionne eventually plans to sell up to %24900 million of shares held by Fiat Chrysler.

Fiat Chrysler Automobiles has 226%2C000 employes worldwide and about %24110 billion in annual sales.

Fiat Chrysler Automobiles shares opened at $9 at the New York Stock Exchange's 9:30 a.m. opening, quickly rose to $9.50 within 10 minutes then retreated to just under $9 per share by 11 a.m..

FCA CEO Sergio Marchionne and Fiat Chairman John Elkann will ring the closing bell today at 4 p.m., capping the automaker's first day of trading in New York. The shares continue to trade on the Milan Stock Exchange in Italy.

The "dual listing" is not considered an initial public offering because the company is not selling new shares.

Investors who held Fiat stock on Friday received shares of FCA. The shares are trading under the ticker symbol FCAU.

The company said 1.17 billion shares are offered.

Today marks the start of a new chapter for the company, and is first time since 1998 that shares of a company that owns Chrysler have traded on a U.S. stock exchange.

"The formal creation of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles and its debut on the New York Stock Exchange is a historic moment," said Elkann, the great-great-grandson of Fiat founder Giovanni Agnelli. "Today, building on the foundations and aspirations of Fiat and Chrysler, we are beginning a completely new phase that will see our group play a major role in the future of the global automotive industry."

Marchionne said Friday the purpose of listing stock on the NYSE was to allow investors to benchmark Fiat Chrysler against its competitors.

The creation of the new company, which is registered in the Netherlands and headquartered in London, became official Sunday.

The company also has formed a new board of eleven directors. Marchionne will be CEO and Elkann is chairman, the titles they held at Fiat.

With 226,000 employees worldwide and $110 billion in annual sales Fiat Chrysler is the seventh largest automaker in the world.

But the company has $12.3 billion of debt, an amount that worries some analysts.

Marchionne unveiled an ambitious five-year-plan in May that calls for the company to invest as much as $60 billion to hit the plan's goals.

The goals include boosting sales from $110 billion in 2013 to $167 billion in 2018 and sales to jump from 4.4 million to 7 million annually.

Marchionne could raise capital for Fiat Chrysler by selling some or all of the 34.6 million shares the automaker held as of June 30. Thos shares are valued at about $327 million. In addition, FCAalso gained control over about $507 million of stock that Fiat shareholders sold.

"We will have close to $900 million of stock that is potentially available," Marchionne said. "When that happens depends on market conditions, but it will come back to the U.S. market. The whole objective here is to create float to get the stock trading."

Contact Brent Snavely: 313-222-6512 or bsnavely@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @BrentSnavely.