Ferrari Turns to a Chip Guy as CEO Amid Industry Pivot -- Update
09 Juni 2021 - 3:34PM
Dow Jones News
By Eric Sylvers
MILAN -- Ferrari NV hired a top executive from the semiconductor
industry as its new CEO, as car makers focus on microchips and
digital technologies that increasingly control everything from
brakes to entertainment systems.
Benedetto Vigna, 52, will take over at Ferrari on Sept. 1. Until
then, John Elkann, the company's chairman, will continue as interim
chief executive. Mr. Vigna is currently a divisional president at
French-Italian semiconductor manufacturer STMicroelectronics NV,
where he has worked for more than 25 years.
In announcing the appointment, Mr. Elkann cited Mr. Vigna's
"deep understanding of the technologies driving much of the change
in our industry."
The global chip shortage that has led to production delays in
the auto industry is expected to continue for months to come. That
has called into question the auto sector's rebound as the severity
of the coronavirus pandemic recedes in many countries.
The pandemic's economic fallout has hit orders for Ferraris and
other luxury cars. Ferrari issued a profit warning in May, saying
that because of the pandemic it wouldn't meet profit targets it had
set for next year. The company pushed back the target to 2023.
Despite the setback, Ferrari has weathered the Covid-19 storm
better than most of its peers. While car sales, revenue and profit
fell last year, the company still reported a 21% operating margin
after stripping out one-time items. That compares with 7.9% for
General Motors Co. Ford Motor Co. posted a loss last year. While
Ferrari's profit margin was consistently above 20% before the
pandemic, most car makers have struggled to exceed 10% in the best
of times.
Ferrari's Italian-traded shares are down almost 20% this year,
though the stock is still trading more than four times higher than
five years ago.
Mr. Vigna will be tasked with charting Ferrari's path toward
electrification. The shift is consuming the energy of the entire
industry, but it is a particularly pressing issue for Ferrari,
which has long distinguished itself through its powerful motors. It
isn't yet clear how successfully it can shift to a new-look auto
industry, where batteries and computer code supplant the internal
combustion motor.
The first plug-in hybrid Ferrari is on sale -- subject to a
waiting list as with all models -- and the company has promised its
first all-electric vehicle in 2025.
Also on Mr. Vigna's to-do list will be righting Ferrari's
Formula One team, which hasn't won a championship since 2008 or an
individual race since September 2019.
Mr. Vigna follows on the heels of Louis Camilleri, who ran
Ferrari starting in July 2018 following the sudden death of Sergio
Marchionne, who was CEO of both the fabled sports car maker and the
former Fiat Chrysler group, now part of Stellantis NV.
Mr. Camilleri, a former tobacco executive who also had no
car-industry experience, stepped down in December 2020 following a
bout of Covid-19. He had a successful run at the helm, boosting
Ferrari's sales and profit until the pandemic upended the auto
industry.
Many analysts had expected Ferrari to appoint an executive with
experience in the luxury-goods industry as the auto maker works to
expand its brand beyond cars into products such as apparel and
leather accessories.
In his years running Ferrari, Mr. Marchionne successfully
pitched it to investors as a luxury-goods company that should be
valued in a similar way to the likes of Hermès International SA and
LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton SE. That has allowed Ferrari to
achieve a market capitalization of 35 billion euros, equivalent to
about $42.6 billion, many times that of some mass-market car makers
with bigger operations.
Write to Eric Sylvers at eric.sylvers@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
June 09, 2021 09:34 ET (13:34 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2021 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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