Exor Narrows Its Healthcare Bet to Philips Alone

Exor valued its Philips stake at €4.4 billion on 30 June 2026, more than twice the €2.2 billion then left in Stellantis. The Agnelli family’s listed holding company posted those marks on 22 September with its half-year report and a €500 million buyback.

Three years after Exor called healthcare a long-term growth sector and put nearly €4 billion to work, the sleeve has narrowed. The Italian hospital group is gone, the French diagnostics holding is below cost, and Philips is the position still being built, with the cap on that stake now at 22%.

Philips Now Weighs More Than Stellantis

Gross assets were €35.76 billion at 30 June, down 3.7% from €37.1 billion at the end of 2025. Net asset value was €32 billion, or €157.9 a share, a 3.9% drop in NAV per share against an 11.8% rise in the MSCI World Index, the benchmark Exor uses.

Philips accounted for 12.4% of gross assets and 18.9% of economic rights. Stellantis, still listed among Exor’s core holdings, was about 6.3% of the same book after a €2.016 billion mark-to-market hit in six months. Ferrari remained the giant at €12.3 billion, or 34.2% of gross assets.

EXOR’S BOOK AT 30 JUNE 2026

The crossover with Stellantis is not a Philips spike. At the end of 2025 the two stakes were almost level, Philips at €4.2 billion and Stellantis at €4.3 billion. In the first half Philips added €77 million of stock, much of it scrip dividend, and €99 million of value. Stellantis lost nearly half its carrying amount. CNH, Ferrari and Philips together only partly offset that hole.

CEO John Elkann said Stellantis was the only one of Exor’s four largest companies whose share price fell in the first six months, and that the drop hit NAV. The healthcare sleeve did not rescue the half. It did change the mix: the Dutch health-tech group now sits above the carmaker that defined the family for a century.

How the Healthcare Sleeve Narrowed

Exor’s first large healthcare cheques were a French family partnership and a small Italian clinic platform. The cheque that still matters is Philips.

On 14 August 2023 Exor bought a 15% shareholding in Philips for about €2.6 billion, on market and through a bank, with a board nomination right. The original 20% cap in the 2023 filing was the ceiling. Elkann’s case then was the same one he had already put to shareholders: higher service costs and a shortage of medical staff were pushing demand for new tools.

Through 2025 Exor lifted the Philips line above 19%. Elkann later told shareholders the holding had delivered an annualized return of nearly 12% and had beaten its peers since the first purchase. Philips, he wrote, had sales up 2% in 2025, order intake up 6% (the strongest since 2020), an adjusted EBITA margin of 12.3%, and €1.7 billion of research spending. It also paid a €1 billion Respironics settlement after the 2024 deals with U.S. authorities, with a consent decree still running.

At a February 2026 capital markets day Philips set targets for 2026 to 2028: mid-single-digit comparable sales growth, a mid-teens adjusted EBITA margin in 2028, and more than €4.5 billion of cumulative free cash flow through 2028. On 11 August 2026 the two sides updated the relationship agreement so Exor can raise its Philips stake to 22%, and go higher if the Philips supervisory board agrees. Governance is unchanged, including one board seat, held by Benoît Ribadeau-Dumas, who became Exor’s deputy CEO on 1 July 2026.

Elkann said the update “reflects our continued commitment to Philips as its largest shareholder.” Philips chief Roy Jakobs tied it to the 2026 to 2028 plan. The healthcare bet is no longer a three-name sleeve. It is a controlled build in one listed medtech company.

THE HEALTHCARE BET FROM 2022 TO 2026

1. 21 June 2022: Pays €67 million for 45% of Lifenet, an Italian hospital and clinic manager.
2. 1 July 2022: Agrees to take 10% of Institut Mérieux for €833 million; the deal closes later that month with Elkann and Ribadeau-Dumas joining the board.
3. 14 August 2023: Buys 15% of Philips for about €2.6 billion, with a 20% cap and one supervisory board seat.
4. 2025: Raises the Philips line above 19% and records an annualized return of nearly 12% since entry.
5. 16 February 2026: Agrees to sell Lifenet to Reale Mutua, with founder Nicola Bedin staying on.
6. July 2026: Completes the Lifenet sale for €209 million in cash.
7. 11 August 2026: Lifts the Philips cap from 20% to 22%.
8. 22 September 2026: Reports Philips at €4.4 billion, Institut Mérieux at €680 million, and about €4 billion of deployable cash.

The path is a concentration trade. Small healthcare names were sold or marked down. The one that cleared the size test kept getting more capital.

The Italian Hospitals Went to an Insurer

Lifenet was the piece that most closely matched Elkann’s original staffing-and-services pitch. It runs private hospitals, outpatient sites and eye clinics in five Italian regions. Exor sold the entire holding to Reale Group, the parent of Reale Mutua, in a deal agreed in February 2026 and closed in July for €209 million cash, matching the carrying value Exor had just marked.

Reale took 78%, which was all of Exor’s stock plus a slice from the Bedin family vehicle Invin. Nicola Bedin, the founder and chief executive, keeps 21% and the job. Exor’s 2022 entry was €67 million for 45%; later additions, including a 2025 reclassification, lifted the line to €196 million by the end of 2025 before the last €13 million of value into the sale.

WHAT REALE MUTUA BOUGHT

• The footprint: Sixteen outpatient and diagnostic centres, six hospitals and four eye clinics in Lombardy, Piedmont, Lazio, Tuscany and Emilia-Romagna.
• The scale: 1,102 beds and more than 5,000 staff, with 2026 revenue expected above €450 million.
• The structure: Reale holds 78%, Bedin keeps 21% through Invin, and he stays as chief executive.

Elkann grouped Lifenet with Iveco Group, GEDI and NUO as four sales meant to bring in €2 billion at a multiple of more than 1.4 times invested capital. The hospital platform was never going to be another Philips. It was a local services asset that found a buyer in an insurer trying to lock in clinics and diagnostics. The staff-shortage thesis did not keep Exor in Italian beds. It kept Exor in Dutch imaging, monitoring and ultrasound.

Institut Mérieux Trades Under Exor’s Cost

The other 2022 pillar is the one still on the books, and it is underwater versus the cheque. Exor paid €833 million for 10% of Institut Mérieux, the Mérieux family’s private healthcare holding, as a reserved capital increase. Elkann called it a way into healthcare with a partner that shared a long horizon. Alain Mérieux, the chairman, called it a European family partnership.

At 30 June 2026 that stake was worth €680 million, down 29% from €956 million at the end of 2025, and 18% below the 2022 cost. bioMérieux, the listed diagnostics company, is about 69% of the Institut Mérieux portfolio. Its first-half sales were €1.965 billion, up 0.2% organically. Growth in non-respiratory BIOFIRE panels, the SPOTFIRE rollout, microbiology and industrial tests was wiped out by a 17% organic drop in BIOFIRE respiratory panels after a milder flu season than the year before. Transgene also weighed; Moderna in the wider Mérieux orbit helped only a little.

Institut Mérieux is still the diagnostics and public-health relationship Exor said it wanted in 2022. It is no longer a growth mark in the NAV bridge. In a half when Exor is advertising simplification and larger companies, a 10% slice of a private French holding that moves with bioMérieux’s respiratory kits sits in the wrong size bucket.

Ferrari Still Carries a Third of the Book

Healthcare did not replace cars. It replaced the mass-market car. Ferrari’s €12.3 billion line is still more than Philips, CNH and Stellantis stacked together. Economic rights are 19.5%. Exor extended its shareholders’ agreement with the Ferrari family at the start of 2026. Elkann wrote that conviction in the company “remains as strong as ever.”

Ferrari’s 2025 numbers explain the weight: net revenues of €7.1 billion, up 7%, EBIT up 12%, and an EBIT margin of 29.5%, with an order book stretching toward the end of 2027. The share price had a harder year after an October capital markets day that some investors read as slower growth. That is a valuation argument, not a cash argument. Ferrari still funds the holding company’s room to manoeuvre.

Stellantis is the reverse. Elkann’s 2025 shareholder letter is blunt. In 2023 the carmaker posted €189.5 billion of net revenues and €18.6 billion of net profit. Two years later revenues were €153.5 billion and the net loss was €22.3 billion, after about €25 billion of unusual charges. He said the company cut costs too hard, moved into electric vehicles faster than buyers, and drifted from what customers wanted. He served as acting chief executive for part of 2025, then the board named Antonio Filosa. Filosa’s FaSTLAne 2030 plan, presented in February 2026, is backed by €60 billion of investment and aims for a higher operating margin, positive industrial free cash flow, and a large cost cut.

Exor is still the largest shareholder and still defends the reset. It is no longer, in financial terms, a Stellantis company with a few side bets. A third of the book is a luxury sports-car maker. The next listed slab is a Dutch health-tech group. The old volume carmaker is a 6% residual that can still wreck a half, as it just did.

Four Billion Euros Awaits the Next Philips

Sales are filling the till faster than new operating companies are arriving. Iveco sold its defence arm to Leonardo, and Tata Motors launched a tender for Iveco Group with closing expected in November 2026. GEDI and NUO are gone with Lifenet. A sale of Welltec, agreed in September 2026, is due in the first quarter of 2027 at about 2.4 times invested capital. Deployable cash, Exor said, will be about €4 billion.

That is the dry powder Elkann has been describing since the March 2026 full-year results, when he said four sales would raise €2 billion and lift cash available for deployment above €3.5 billion, “in a strong position to pursue a significant new investment similar in scale and ambition to Philips.” The half-year report repeats the line: a stronger balance sheet “allows us to move decisively when new opportunities appear, including for a new investment of the same magnitude as Philips.”

CASH AND THE DISCOUNT

• Dry powder: About €4 billion of deployable cash after the 2026 sales, including Welltec once it closes.
• Loan-to-value: 4.7% at 30 June 2026, against a 15% ceiling, down from 6.9% at the end of 2025.
• Market cap: €14 billion, a 56% discount to the €32 billion NAV.
• H1 inflows: Close to €1.0 billion already received from disposals and an Iveco special dividend.

The capital-allocation fight is simple, and it is not theoretical. One path is another company the size of the 2023 Philips cheque, in health, tech, or whatever clears Exor’s “larger companies” filter. The other is the pull of Stellantis, a name with a century of family history and a share price that has already taken €2 billion off NAV in six months. Buying more of a falling carmaker would reverse the mix shift the healthcare years just produced. Sitting on cash until a Philips-scale file appears is the stated plan. The market is pricing a wide gap between those words and the portfolio it can see.

Why Exor Is Buying Its Own Stock

Beside the hunt for a new operating company, Exor is bidding for itself. The board authorised purchases of up to €500 million, to run on market until the next results in March 2027, and the programme started on 23 September 2026. Elkann put the case in the results statement.

The reshaping of our portfolio has continued. We are pleased with this year’s divestments and the returns they have delivered, and equally pleased to have found good homes for these companies with owners who can take them forward into their next phase of growth. Our shares meanwhile continue to trade at a substantial discount to NAV and, in addition, don’t reflect our assessment of the intrinsic value of our portfolio. As share purchases are a crucial part of our capital allocation strategy, we are launching a buyback program of up to €500 million.

John Elkann, CEO, Exor first-half 2026 results

At €14 billion of market cap against €32 billion of NAV, the stock is the cheapest asset in the room. A €500 million buyback is 12.5% of the cash pile and about 3.6% of the market cap, large enough to matter, small enough to leave a Philips-scale cheque intact. That split is the tell. Exor is not spending the whole till on its own shares, and it is not spending it on Stellantis. It is keeping most of the money for one more company of Philips size, while clipping a piece of a 56% discount.

The healthcare wager of 2022 and 2023 is therefore no longer a sector tour. Lifenet is with an insurer. Institut Mérieux is a 10% line below the €833 million entry. Philips is the remaining compounder, already larger than Stellantis in the book, with room to 22% and a board seat. About €4 billion is waiting for the next name that looks like that one.

Disclaimer: This article is news reporting and analysis of Exor’s published results, holdings and healthcare transactions, and it is for information only. It is not investment advice, a solicitation, or a recommendation to buy or sell shares in Exor, Philips, Stellantis, Ferrari, CNH, Institut Mérieux or any other company named here, and it is not a forecast of future net asset value or deal outcomes. Readers should consult a qualified financial adviser or licensed investment professional before making any investment decision. Figures, stake sizes, cash balances and transaction statuses reflect company statements and filings as of the dates given in the piece and can change with later results, closings and market prices.