MILAN, June 25 (Reuters) - Italian bank Mediobanca and other investors have bought just under 35 percent of Ferrari ahead of a planned flotation of the racing and sports car group by parent Fiat , Borsa & Finanza reported on Tuesday.
In a summary of a story sent to news agencies, Borsa & Finanza said the investors paid about 870 million euros for the stake, valuing Ferrari at about 2.5 billion euros.
Ferrari is 90-percent owned by Fiat, which plans to list the carmaker and Formula One team on the Milan bourse by the end of the year as part of a wide-sweeping plan to cut the industrial group's debt to three billion euros.
Since it announced the IPO, Fiat has said it wants to keep control of Ferrari, and last week Fiat Chairman and Chief Executive Paolo Fresco said, "we will definitely not sell more than 35 percent".
Borsa & Finanza's unsourced report said the Mediobanca-led investors had bought the stake "as a first step in the quotation process which (Ferrari's) board will discuss on July 8".
A Fiat spokesman declined to comment on the report, while nobody at Ferrari or Mediobanca was immediately available.
Last year, Ferrari made just over one billion euros in turnover for an operating profit of 62 million euros.