Fiat’s announcement that it intends to invest $1 billion in its Latin American operations – based at a modern plant in Belo Horizonte, Brazil, comes at an interesting time. No mention is made of Commercial Vehicles – although both Daily and the Heavy range are manufactured there, but reference is made to a target of a 15 per cent passenger car market share by 2010. So we wonder if the share price flurry of last week – which saw Fiat stock go vertical for a couple of days as a result of a rumour that it was about to announce the divestment of its Iveco business – may be more than mere fallout from the MAN-Scania debacle, which has focussed a lot of market attention on the CV sector. Is Fiat gearing up to sell Iveco? Third quarter results are announced on the 26th October – and are expected to be good – but the key diary date is November 8 – 9, when the Italian OEM will host an analysts meeting. We wonder …….. Email the author