MILAN, March 16 (Reuters) - Pirelli & C (PECI.MI), the Italian holding company behind the tyre and real estate businesses of the same name, should end the year with a profit, its chairman said on Monday.
"We foresee the group as a whole closing 2009 with a profit," Marco Tronchetti Provera was quoted by a Pirelli spokeswoman as saying at a presentation in Milan.
"We are fairly optimistic that in 2009 things will change," he said. "The market is moving, the measures taken in 2008 and being carried out in 2009 are producing results."
In 2008, Pirelli ran a net loss of 412.5 million euros compared with a net profit of 323.6 million euros the previous year. The loss was the result of the cost of a major restructuring and a drop in the value of assets and investments in the face of the global crisis.
