Stellantis CEO Carlos Tavares to visit U.S. to create plan to reverse lagging profit, report says

DETROIT — Stellantis CEO Carlos Tavares will visit Detroit this week, where he will seek to develop a strategy to fix the automaker's struggling North American operations and reassure employees and investors, a person familiar with the plans said.

The strategy is likely to be developed by the end of this week, said the source, who asked not to be identified.

While Tavares typically visits the North American operations every four to six weeks according to the source and a second person, one of them added that the CEO's visit this week during his summer break was meant to send a clear signal.

"He wanted to make clear he was handling it personally," the source said. "North American operations are basically funding the rest of the group."

Tavares, who described Stellantis' first-half results as "humbling," has said the automaker's North American business suffered from a mix of high vehicle inventories, manufacturing issues and a lack of "sophistication" in how it addressed the local market.

A spokesperson for Stellantis declined to comment.

During the visit this week to the U.S. offices near Detroit in Auburn Hills, Mich., Tavares will initially meet with top-line managers before formulating a strategy by week's end to fix things, the source said.

Stellantis' first-half operating income fell 40 per cent, mainly due to poor business performance in North America, its profit powerhouse.

Vehicle sales in the region for Stellantis' top brands, Ram and Jeep, have both declined at least 33 per cent from the first half of 2019 to the same period this year, according to research firm Cox Automotive.

'WE WERE ARROGANT'

Tavares blamed himself for not being quick enough to act while problems at the group's North American operations were piling up and, when presenting first-half results, said he would spend part of his summer holidays there to fix them.

"We were arrogant," he said earlier this year at Stellantis' investor day in Michigan. "I'm talking about myself, nobody else."

Those results came just after Tavares enjoyed a compensation package on Stellantis' 2023 earnings of up to €36.5 million (US $40.6 million), a 56-per-cent increase from a year earlier.

Stellantis' main mistake in North America was to keep increasing prices in a bid to boost margins even as the market was signaling customers were not ready to pay, making some Stellantis models too expensive, Jefferies analyst Philippe Houchois said.

"They have lacked pragmatism to address straight away the inventories building, they should have made more tactical prices to avoid that," Houchois said.

Massimo Baggiani, founder at Niche Asset Management in London, said Tavares remains "the best executive in the industry."

"It's key now for him to keep financial discipline. He needs to show that he can increase car sales without compressing margins, losing money and burning cash," Baggiani said of Tavares.

U.S. JOB CUTS

Stellantis already has moved to cut costs by reducing its U.S. workforce.

It said this month it would lay off up to 2,450 factory workers from its Warren Truck assembly plant outside of Detroit as the automaker ends production of the Ram 1500 Classic truck. In late July, the company said it would also offer a round of voluntary buyouts to U.S. salaried employees.

Tavares also has said there are particular inefficiencies at two U.S. plants but has declined to specify which ones. In July, he told reporters the run rate at its Sterling Heights Assembly Plant in Michigan was poor.

Tavares' visit comes amid increasing uneasiness among some investors and union workers over the North American struggles.

UAW President Shawn Fain has threatened that the union may strike if the automaker fails to keep the investment commitments outlined in last autumn's labor deal. Relationships between the union and automaker have been tense as Stellantis has laid off hourly workers at plants this year.

Meanwhile, a group of shareholders last week sued Stellantis, saying it defrauded them by concealing rising inventories and other weaknesses before posting disappointing earnings that caused its stock price to fall.

The company has said the lawsuit was "without merit" and told the UAW it had not violated terms of their bargaining agreement and the union could not legally strike.