Carlos Tavares, former CEO of Stellantis, at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Nevada, on January 5, 2023. (AFP / Robyn BECK)
The action of the Franco-Italian-American automobile manufacturer Stellantis fell by more than 7% on Monday on the Paris Stock Exchange, after the announcement of the resignation Sunday evening of its general director Carlos Tavares.
Around 8:45 a.m. GMT, the stock lost 7.41%, to 11.61 euros, in last place in the CAC 40 index, itself down 0.96%.
The Stellantis automobile group (brands Peugeot, Citroën, Fiat, Chrysler, Opel, Lancia, Jeep, etc.) announced on Sunday the resignation “with immediate effect” of Mr. Tavares, whose successor will be appointed in the first half of 2025.
The board of directors had already suspended Mr. Tavares, 66, by announcing his retirement in early October and launched a succession process, but disagreements accelerated his resignation.
The planets were no longer aligned, with “different points of view” between the board of directors and Mr. Tavares, explained Henri de Castries, director of Stellantis.
John Elkann, chairman of the board of directors of Stellantis and heir to the group's main shareholder, the Italian Agnelli family, had notably ruled out any merger with another automobile group, in an interview with AFP in October, while Mr. Tavares left the door open.
Coming from Renault, Mr. Tavares made a name for himself by turning around the PSA group (Peugeot-Citroën) from 2014, by reducing costs.
He then led the megamerger between PSA and FCA (Fiat-Chrysler). Since the creation of this group of fourteen brands in 2021, Stellantis has set net profit records.
The group also quickly turned to hybrid and electric cars.
But Stellantis coughed in the first half of 2024, with net profit halved, before seeing its margins collapse in the face of more serious difficulties than expected in North America – its cash machine – with vehicles of criticized quality and prices considered too high.
Mr. Tavares had to abandon his sacred “double-digit” operating margin objective for the year at the end of September, which placed him far ahead of his competitors.
The process of appointing the group's new general director is already “well underway” and “will be completed during the first half of 2025”, the group underlined.
In a context of difficulties for the automobile sector, Renault's action lost 3.97% around 08:45 GMT in Paris and that of Volkswagen, whose employees launched a strike on Monday, fell by 1.49% in Frankfurt.
