John Elkann, 32, to become new czar of Italy's Fiat dynasty

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MILAN (AFP) - The Agnelli dynasty will crown the new czar of the Fiat automotive empire on Tuesday when John Elkann, scion of the family known as "Italy's Kennedys," takes over at the tender age of 32.

Already vice chairman of Fiat, Elkann will replace 83-year-old Gianluigi Gabetti, a close associate of the Agnelli clan, at the head of IFIL, the holding company that manages a portfolio worth some eight billion euros (12 billion dollars).

The iconic industrial family's holdings include a 30 percent stake in Fiat, 2.4 percent in the banking group Intesa Sanpaolo, and 62 percent in the Turin football team Juventus.

The holding company is indirectly held by the "lockbox" Giovanni Agnelli & C., which will remain Gabetti's province.

Gabetti, who groomed Elkann to assume the leadership position, said recently that his charge "has completed the course, he is more than ready."

The legendary Giovanni "Gianni" Agnelli, who died in January 2003 after more than 50 years at the helm, had designated his grandson as his successor.

In December 1997, when Agnelli named the then 21-year-old Elkann to the board of Fiat, Italians wondered whether someone so young could be expected to handle the fortunes of such a national business icon.

The tall, lanky Elkann developed a taste for risk-taking and effort while taking part in his grandfather's sporting adventures at sea or in the mountains.

"We went skiing together. He pushed me to take the most difficult slope, to discover places that we didn't know," Elkann told the daily Corriere della Sera.

The son of Agnelli's daughter Margherita and the writer Alain Elkann, John Elkann was born in New York and had a cosmopolitan childhood in Britain, Brazil and France.

After finishing secondary school in 1994 in Paris, he took his grandfather's advice by going on to study industrial engineering in Turin, Italy, earning his degree in 2000.

Agnelli designed Elkann's career path within Fiat, whose brands include Lancia and Alfa Romeo.

The young man started out doing internships incognito with Magneti Marelli in England and the Fiat production line in Tichy, Poland, and worked as a salesman at a subsidiary in Lille, northern France.

In 2001, he took his first paying job as an auditor for General Electric before heading to Fiat's Turin headquarters in May 2002.

Agnelli's death in 2003 and that of Elkann's great uncle Umberto the next year at age 70 propelled the youth towards centre stage earlier than planned.

Elkann joined IFIL in 2003 and became Fiat vice president in 2004.

Gabetti showed Elkann the ropes at IFIL, when the young man initially spent much of his time managing the family's interests abroad.

During this time Fiat CEO Sergio Marchionne pulled off a stunning turnaround for the struggling group and was tipped to succeed chairman Luca Cordero di Montezemolo.

Known for his tact, Elkann has also demonstrated firmness, notably when he named Frenchman Jean-Claude Blanc to head Juventus after a match-rigging scandal in 2006.

Last year he was quick to oppose his mother's demand for an investigation into whether all of Agnelli's fortune had been properly disposed of in a 2004 inheritance agreement.