Marco Tronchetti Provera is the man who let the Chinese into Italy's Pirelli in 2015. Eight years later, the honeymoon was over: the Chinese, he warned, had become dangerous.
In between those two moments sits a governance lesson few European companies saw coming, one that standard ownership tools were structurally unable to detect. Registers showed a Chinese stake steadily shrinking, from 63% to today's 34%. Control told the opposite story. This is the gap the ZENO Power Index measures.
The players: Sinochem, the Beijing-controlled state conglomerate that inherited ChemChina's holding and remains Pirelli's largest shareholder. Camfin and MTP & C., the investment vehicles of Marco Tronchetti Provera, the Italian businessman long identified with Pirelli's leadership. And two governments, Rome and Washington, who turned a boardroom dispute into a question of national security.
2015: A tilted bargain
ChemChina buys Pirelli. On paper, the deal is elegant: the Chinese bring the capital, and Tronchetti Provera keeps his hands on the wheel. The reality was different. With 63% of the capital, the Chinese called the shots, and Tronchetti found himself running a company that was slipping through his fingers.
2017 to 2024: Stepping back to rule better
The Chinese stake shrinks in visible stages: 63 → 45 → 37%. The obvious reading is a withdrawal. The structural reading is the opposite. Selling shares is not the same as ceding power. Trimming the stake calms regulators, reassures markets, and defuses sovereignty alarms, while real control stays exactly where it was.
Tronchetti works his way back up to 25% of the capital. The ZENO Power Index does not budge. More shares in his hands, still not in the driver's seat. This is precisely the manoeuvre that a percentage-of-shares view cannot catch, and that ZENO's continuous, auditable control score is built to expose.
2023: It took two governments to slow Beijing down
The Chinese grip would never have loosened on its own. It took pressure from two governments to force it.
Rome moved first. In mid-2023 the Meloni government invoked its "Golden Power" to clamp restrictions on Pirelli's governance, capping information access, raising vote thresholds for strategic decisions, and limiting board representation and governance rights for as long as the Chinese stake stays above 9.99%. The target was the Cyber Tyre, a sensor-packed tire that streams real-time performance data to the vehicle, already fitted by several high-end carmakers. The unavoidable question: could that data end up in Beijing?
Washington piled on. In an April 2025 advisory, the US Commerce Department's Bureau of Industry and Security warned that carmakers using Cyber Tyre tech would likely need special authorization to sell in the US. For a company that draws roughly a quarter of its revenue from North America, that was an existential threat to its growth story.
The upshot: the Chinese were boxed in. But Beijing did not go quietly, and used its board seats to fight back. Sinochem-appointed directors voted against Pirelli's 2024 financial statements, then against the first-quarter 2025 results.
2025: The first real retreat
Chinese control finally cracks. For the first time in a decade, the ZENO Power Index slips below the total-control mark, from 1 to 0.8. Tronchetti's own score rises. But it is still not enough: control has fractured, not broken.
July 2026: Control changing hands?
In early July 2026, Bloomberg reported that Michal Strnad, the Czech billionaire, is in talks to buy 14% of Pirelli from Sinochem. The transaction would cut the Chinese stake to roughly 20% and tilt Pirelli's control decisively back toward Europe. Another Czech investor, Pavel Tykac, was reportedly involved early on but has since dropped out.
ZENO's projections put a number on what the register alone can't tell you: whether that 14% actually breaks Chinese control.
| Actor | Shares | Power Index |
|---|---|---|
| Tronchetti | 25.7% | 0.59 |
| China | 20.1% | 0.41 |
| Strnad | 14.0% | 0.37 |
| Actor | Shares | Power Index |
|---|---|---|
| Tronchetti | 25.7% | 0.59 |
| China | 14.1% | 0.38 |
| Strnad + Tykac | 20.0% | 0.41 |
The takeaway
You can sell off 26 points of capital and surrender none of the power. Control is not measured in a percentage of shares; it is written into the structure. That blind spot is exactly what the ZENO Power Index brings to light.
How many "European" companies sit in the same position right now, controlled by an actor their ownership register understates, and their tools cannot see? ZENO's Z-CAT engine maps the full ownership chain and identifies the Ultimate Controlling Owners behind it.
"A share held for control is worth more than a share held for portfolio." Luc Leruth, Founder & CEO, ZENO-Indices
© ZENO-Indices S.A. All rights reserved July 2026.
A ZENO-Indices analysis, prepared by Charles Meuwly.