Italy's Juventus not up for sale, says Exor CEO Elkann

TURIN, Italy : Exor has not received any approach from funds over a possible sale of Serie A soccer club Juventus, its Chief Executive John Elkann said on Thursday.

Asked by reporters whether any funds, including Arab or American, had approached the investment company controlled by Italy's Agnelli family which controls the soccer club, over a possible transaction, Elkann said: "no".

"Nor have we approached funds, it's not a scenario we're interested in," Elkann said during a news conference ahead of Exor's capital markets day.

Exor was not considering delisting Juventus, he added.

The Turin-based soccer club last month approved a capital increase of up to 200 million euros ($218 million). Exor, which owns a 64 per cent stake in Juventus, had made an initial payment of 80 million euros to support the club pending the capital increase.

Elkann also said Exor had no plans to move its headquarters from the Netherlands after its recent election, which was won by far-right populist Geert Wilders.

"We have no indication today that the Netherlands is not as stable as it has been and we remain convinced that today it offers a base that ... is very stable and convenient for companies like ours that have global interests," he said.

Exor last year raised around $9 billion from the sale of its reinsurer PartnerRe to France's Covea, which it used for M&A and share buybacks.

After recent deals, including the purchase of a 15 per cent stake in Dutch healthcare equipment maker Philips NV this summer, Exor has now around 2.2 billion euros in cash available for investments, slides for its investor day showed.

Around 1.7 billion euros of it was already "allocated", slides showed, without adding details.

"Let's say that we have used most of the