In our article titled “Piero Ferrari 101: Who is the Famous Billionaire Businessman?”, we will comprehensively cover everything you need to know about Piero Ferrari, the renowned billionaire businessman, as Zatrun.com.
Who is Piero Ferrari?
Piero Lardi Ferrari (born May 22, 1945) is an Italian billionaire businessman and sports personality. He is the second and only surviving son of Enzo Ferrari and owns 10.23% of the Ferrari automotive company and serves as its vice chairman. He also owns 13.2% of the Ferretti Group. As of August 2022, his net worth is estimated at $4.6 billion. Piero Ferrari is the son of Enzo Ferrari (February 20, 1898 – August 14, 1988) and his mistress Lina Lardi (1911–2006). He is the brother of Dino Ferrari (January 19, 1932 – June 30, 1956), who died at the age of 24 after being diagnosed with Duchenne muscular dystrophy.
Piero was 11 years old when Dino passed away and never met his brother. After Dino’s death, Enzo gave Piero a 10% stake in the Ferrari company, making him one of the main heirs. Enzo met Lina Lardi while working at Carrozzerie Orlandi, a car design firm in Modena, in the late 1930s. They soon began a romantic relationship, and their son Piero was born on May 22, 1945. Enzo and Lina continued their relationship until Enzo’s death in 1988.
However, divorce was not legal in Italy until 1975, so Piero could not be considered a member of the Ferrari family until the death of Enzo’s estranged wife Laura on February 27, 1978. In 1990, he legally changed his name from Piero Lardi Ferrari to Piero Ferrari. Ferrari grew up in Modena and developed an interest in mechanics by spending time at a bicycle repair shop near his mother’s house. He obtained a high school diploma from a mechanics course at Fermo Corni Technical Institute in Modena in 1964.
Career at Ferrari:
In 1969, Ferrari started working unofficially as an English translator for his family’s company, which was owned by his father. In the early 1970s, he was officially hired as a technical inspector to list, identify, and archive faulty or ineffective automobile components. One of his early tasks was to take the drawings and parts of the 196 Dino to the GT department and serve as a bridge between the road car and racing departments, thus gaining significant experience about the factory’s operational dynamics.
He was transferred to the Formula 1 team in 1974 and worked as an organizer, assisting sports directors Luca Cordero di Montezemolo and Daniele Audetto. In the mid-1980s, he became an inspector for the production of road cars and helped develop concepts for low-volume Ferraris such as the F40, F50, and LaFerrari. When Enzo Ferrari passed away in 1988, Piero Ferrari became the sole heir of the Ferrari family and inherited a 10% stake in the company and ownership of the Fiorano Circuit.
In 1989, he was nominated as Vice Chairman by the then Ferrari President, Vittorio Ghidella. In the 2013 Chinese Grand Prix, Ferrari’s team principal at the time, Stefano Domenicali, convinced Piero Ferrari to collect the trophy for the team after Fernando Alonso’s victory. This marked the first time in Scuderia Ferrari’s history that a member of the Ferrari family stepped onto the podium in a Formula 1 race.
Business Ventures:
In 1998, Piero Ferrari teamed up with José Di Mase to acquire Piaggio Aero Engineering and aimed to revive it as a designer and manufacturer of business jets under the Piaggio name. Ferrari was appointed as the chairman. He resigned in 2015 after selling his remaining 1.95% stake to Mubadala Development Company. This connection proved useful to Ferrari as it helped convince Mubadala to become a sponsor for the Ferrari Formula One team the following year. Ferrari is also the chairman of HPE COXA, which he founded in 1998 with the aim of providing high-quality engineering services in the mechanical field.
In 2009, HPE acquired COXA, a manufacturing firm that specialized in high-precision production of niche volumes and prototypes, founded in 1985. After Ferrari’s IPO on October 21, 2015, his 10% stake was valued at $1.1 billion. He entered Ferretti Group with a 13.2% stake on April 28, 2016. In May 2019, he was ranked number 838 on Forbes’ list of world billionaires with a net worth of $3.1 billion. He also launched Ferretti Group’s new superyacht division by purchasing the 50-meter “RACE,” the first mega-yacht built by Riva in 2019.
In April 2020, he was ranked number 680 on Forbes’ list of world billionaires with a net worth of $3.4 billion. He increased his stake in Ferrari to 10.23% in December 2020. In June 2021, he was ranked number 705 on Forbes’ list of world billionaires with a net worth of $4.7 billion. Ferrari was awarded the “Cavaliere del Lavoro” title in 2004. In the same year, he received an honorary doctorate in aeronautical engineering from the University of Naples. In 2021, he was awarded the Mecenate dello Sport Award in Latina.
Personal Life:
Piero Ferrari resides in Modena at his father’s former residence. He had a close relationship with his father’s mother, Adalgisa Bisbini (1872-1965). He is married to Romina Gingasu, and has a daughter, Antonella, and two grandsons, Enzo and Piero, from his previous marriage to Floriana Nalin.
Ferrari is also an active supporter of the Centro Dino Ferrari, a research center for neurodegenerative and muscle diseases located at the Clinical Neurology Institute of the University of Milan. The center was founded in 1978 by his father Enzo Ferrari and Professor Guglielmo Scarlato (1931-2002), and is named after his stepbrother Dino Ferrari, who died at the age of 24 from Duchenne muscular dystrophy.
