On June 14, 2002, CNH had issued 50,000,000 new shares of common stock. Concurrently, the Fiat Group, CNH?s majority shareholder, had exchanged approximately $1.3 billion of debt owed to Fiat by CNH for CNH common shares also at $4.00 per share.

By applying all the net proceeds of these transactions to debt reduction, CNH has reduced its net indebtedness to $4.1 billion, and lowered its debt to capitalization ratio from 75% to 54%.