ROME, July 24 — Fiat Chrysler shares took a hit on the Milan and New York stock exchanges yesterday after the auto giant’s boss of 14 years Sergio Marchionne suffered life-threatening health problems.
At the open in Milan, sister companies Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (FCA), Ferrari and CNH Industrial saw their shares fall over four per cent each, although they recovered some ground later in the day.
The three groups are controlled by the Agnelli family.
The trend continued in New York with Fiat Chrysler and Ferrari shares tumbling as trading got underway on Wall Street.
About 20 minutes after the open, Ferrari was down a sharp 5.0 per cent to US$133.06 (RM544.61), while Fiat Chrysler Automobiles fell 2.8 per cent to US$18.78.
The company scrambled to put new management in place at the weekend after announcing that the 66-year-old Marchionne was gravely ill in hospital in Zurich after suffering serious complications following surgery on his right shoulder last month.
In a statement, the Fiat Chrysler group said Marchionne “will not come back to work,” while the Italian media described his condition as “irreversible” yesterday.
The Italian-Canadian executive had taken the reins at Fiat in 2004.
He revamped Fiat, Italy’s premier private enterprise, from top to bottom.
In 2009, he merged Fiat with US automaker Chrysler, then hived off its industrial vehicles unit in 2011 to create CNH Industrial and successfully spun off the luxury brand Ferrari in January 2016.
John Elkann, FCA chairman who will also take over as chairman of racing car brand Ferrari, said that Marchionne “has been the best CEO that anyone could ask for and, to me personally, a true mentor, partner and close friend.
“He taught us to have the courage to challenge the status quo, to break with convention and go beyond the tried and tested. He has always pushed everybody to learn, to grow and to excel -– often beyond their own limits –- starting always with himself,” Elkann said.
‘More than a car guy’
Marchionne will be replaced as FCA boss by Briton Mike Manley, head of the iconic Jeep brand.
The new executive head of Ferrari will be Louis Carey Camilleri, CEO of tobacco giant Philip Morris. The cigarette-maker has sponsored Ferarri for four decades.
Suzanne Heywood will take over as the new boss of CNH Industrial, which specialises in agricultural and construction equipment, trucks and buses.
Marchionne had been planning to step down next year.
Regularly tipped as a potential successor to Marchionne in the Italian press, FCA’s operations manager for Europe, Middle East and Africa, Alfredo Altavilla, resigned from his post yesterday, FCA announced.
Experts have cast doubt on the ability of Marchionne’s successors to maintain the momentum he had built up over the years.
German auto expert Ferdinand Dudenhoeffer described Fiat Chrysler as “a weak company and now with Marchionne’s departure, it has become even weaker.”
His successor at the helm of the sprawling FCA, Manley, “is no Marchionne,” Dudenhoeffer said.
Manley “is a car guy, and to manage Fiat Chrysler you need more than just a car guy,” he said. — AFP
