PEERS & MARKETS

A positive week for European markets closing up by over one per cent, in part thanks to the agreement reached for the Greek rescue plan involving the Eurozone countries and the International Monetary Fund. The highest rises were among shares related to basic resources, industry and Auto & Parts.
Pirelli closed at €0.457, up by 4.2% and performing better than the Italian blue chips index of 2.5pp (+1.3pp vs DJ Stoxx Auto). Behind this positive trend of the share price was Unicredit’s upgrade to Buy reflecting a positive outlook on the tyre business and the reduction of the holding discount.
The consensus on the Target Price is currently around 0.51€; with Buy the recommendation given by about 90% of analysts.
Pirelli RE closed at €0.46 down by 0.9%.

GREEN PERFORMANCE, THE CHALLENGE OF 'SCORPION VERDE'

Pirelli launches ‘Scorpion Verde’, the first ecological high performance tyre for SUVs and Crossovers, which is part of the company’s ‘Green Performance’ strategy.
Last 15 March in Barcellona Pirelli presented presented to the press and to 400 dealers from all over Europe and Japan the first tyre for high environmental impact vehicles, which embodies respect for the environment, savings, better breaking capability, grip and driving pleasure without giving up performance.
Scorpion Verde ensures an overall reduction in fuel consumption of up to 3.9% on urban roads and 3.4% on mixed routes (urban and extra-urban) and reduces acoustic emissions by a decibel, which is equal to 30% overall (that is like cancelling an entire lane of a three-lane motorway) and uses 10% less raw materials.
In addition to the powerful ecological vocation, Scorpion Verde guarantees high performance: improvement in braking, better wet grip and handling.
Scorpion Verde will be available on the replacement market from April 2010. Among the latest generation SUVs and Crossovers, Volkswagen’s Touareg has already chosen Scorpion Verde.

http://www.pirellityre.com/web/car-suv-van/scorpion_verde/default.page
Scorpion Verde is mobile: Pirelli has devoted an entire section of the mobile Tyre site to Scorpion Verde, where users will find a range of multi-media content

PEERS & MARKETS

A positive week on the stock market for Pirelli & C (up 1.3% to € 0.44) markedly better than the performance of its European peers (-0.6% Michelin, -1.1% Continental, -4.7% Nokian).
The rising share price was underpinned by recent valuation upgrades after publication of the company’s annual results: 9 of the brokers (50% of the total coverage) raised the Pirelli Target Price, by an average of 4 eurocents. The mean consensus valuation is around 0.51€; with  a Buy recommendation from most brokers (82% of the total).
The performance of the company’s peers in the tyre sector was weak.
Pirelli RE also outperformed other shares in the sector  (+3.9 percentage points higher than the Epra Europe index) rising 4.5% to € 0.464 by the end of the week.