(Adds analyst, Mediobanca comment, background)
By Alberto Sisto and Gianni Montani
ROME/TURIN, June 26 (Reuters) - Fiat's creditors are eyeing a plan for investment bank Mediobanca to buy 35 percent of Fiat's racing car unit Ferrari as the struggling Italian carmaker shifts its asset sale plan into high gear.
The head of one of Fiat's three main creditors, Sanpaolo IMI said on Wednesday the banks had had a first look at the deal, which weekly newspaper Borsa & Finanza said would see Mediobanca buy the stake for 870 million euros ($862.2 million).
Selling the Ferrari stake to Mediobanca would guarantee Fiat vital cash without having to brave inhospitable markets and would help the automaker toward cutting its net debt to 3.0 billion euros by year-end -- a target Sanpaolo and other banks have set as a condition of a 3.0 billion euro rescue plan.
"(The operation) will be studied also by the three banks. A first examination has been done and there will be harder look at some of the valuation aspects," Sanpaolo's chairman, Rainer Masera, said on the sidelines of a banking conference.
Corrado Passera, CEO at IntesaBCI which is another Fiat creditor bank, said Fiat was doing "very well" to sell the stake in Ferrari, famous for its top-end sports cars and Formula One racing team.
Fiat said in May it would list Ferrari this year and use the proceeds to pay down debt. But since then, stock markets have fallen to nine-month lows, forcing Italian fashion house Prada to delay its long-awaited IPO again on Wednesday.
"Mediobanca made Fiat an offer it couldn't refuse," said one financial source. "The valuation put on Ferrari is more than 30 percent greater than what the three banks who had been named global coordinators on the IPO offered."
Market sources said the banks were Deutsche Bank , IntesaBci and UniCredito , one of Mediobanca's core investors.
In a sign that a Ferrari deal could be close, Mediobanca's executive committee was due to meet on Thursday and the Ferrari deal could be one of the main topics, a financial source said.
SEEKING FIAT CORPORATE BUSINESS
Fiat's board was also slated to meet on Thursday but was expected to discuss the situation at loss-making Fiat Auto. Fiat declined to comment on the Mediobanca-Ferrari report.
Analysts speculated why Mediobanca -- controlled by Banca di Roma and UniCredito -- would buy the Ferrari stake for more than the 750 million euros Fiat Chairman Paolo Fresco had said Fiat hoped to raise from the flotation.
"At the current stage there is the impression that Mediobanca is applying for Fiat's corporate business by offering a high valuation for Ferrari," WestLB Panmure analyst Arndt Ellinghorst said in a note.
"However, Fiat will welcome the windfall...easier and earlier than expected."
The reported price would value Ferrari at nearly double Porsche , even though the German luxury carmaker's margins are more than triple those of Ferrari, the analyst said.
Mediobanca helping Fiat through a crisis would be surprising given a history of tension between the two powerful groups in recent years. But it could get the bank, sidelined in some recent large-scale deals, back into the thick of things.
"Mediobanca would manage to get a lot of kudos and would win a prestigious role in restructuring a Fiat that's in crisis," said a Milan financial source.
Last summer, Fiat led a surprise raid on Mediobanca's key industrial asset Montedison, wresting it from the bank's clutches. The two were also once at odds over fashion and media group HdP , in which both are key investors.