While being not even the biggest in total number of sales (wikipedia says fifth). I still find it strange that it's a Dutch company (and Fiat Chrystler before it), since the Netherlands has no local-origin car manufacturer since DAF-Cars was sold to Volvo in the '70.
The reason for being a Dutch company is purely for a taxation advantage, and it goes back to the fact that FIAT/FCA moved its headquarters to the Netherlands under Marchionne's leadership.
Other italian companies (Mediaset owned by Berlusconi Family) did this too recently: ( https://www.ilfattoquotidiano.it/2021/09/18/mediaset-la-sede... )
> The Netherlands entire business is to be a tax haven inside the EU market.
while taxation in NL is lower than other countries like italy or French, it is not a tax haven, which is a precise definition that involves also border line legal activities.
what you maybe mean is that NL was able to lower taxes on companies because they understand their values, while other nations decided to go for a "tax the sh*t out of everything" and now they are surprised that companies are closing or moving to other nations.
the actual reasons for FCA and Mediaset to move to NL was more about legal :
on average in italy you get a decision in 5 years, in NL on average it takes 6 months.
I think Netherlands is just a convenient place for European multinationals to incorporate. ST Micro, another Italo-French company is incorporated there for example.
While STMicroelectronics corporate headquarters and the headquarters for EMEA region are based in the Canton of Geneva, the holding company, STMicroelectronics N.V. is incorporated in the Netherlands.
