The 20-year inheritance feud dividing the Fiat dynasty

Five years ago members of Italy’s most celebrated business dynasty gathered at a grand 18th-century villa outside Turin following the funeral of Marella Agnelli, widow of the great 20th-century industrialist Gianni Agnelli.

But rather than a sombre reunion, the event proved the latest flashpoint in a feud that has split the family as the late couple’s only surviving child Margherita clashed with her son John Elkann over her father’s multibillion-euro estate. They have not seen each other since, according to several relatives.

The schism was thrust back into the spotlight last month when authorities raided the home and offices of Elkann, head of the family business and chair of carmaker Stellantis, following a complaint by his mother that he had helped her mother evade Italian tax.

“Margherita Agnelli has been persecuting her three eldest children and her parents in the courts for over 20 years,” lawyers for Elkann said after the raids.

A fight over the legacy of Gianni Agnelli

The 20-year dispute has pitted Margherita against her three eldest children in a fight the 68-year-old says she is pursuing for the sake of the five children she had by her second husband. Billions of euros in assets are in contention including Monet and Picasso artworks and a stake in Dicembre, the ultimate parent of listed conglomerate Exor, the value of whose holdings have grown 2,700 per cent to €33bn under Elkann since his grandfather’s death more than two decades ago.

As well as Fiat, the carmaker Gianni Agnelli built into one of the biggest in the world and which is now part of global car group Stellantis, Exor holds major stakes in businesses from luxury car manufacturer Ferrari and Juventus Football Club to Dutch medical equipment maker Philips and news magazine The Economist.

“At stake is ownership of Dicembre and therefore of Exor . . . if Margherita were to emerge victorious in…