Stellantis is mending fences in the aftermath of the stormy leadership of Carlos Tavares, which delivered incredible profits but also badly damaged relationships with unions, dealers, politicians and suppliers.
“Those are areas where clearly I think we need to build back trust,” Stellantis chief financial officer Doug Ostermann told a banking conference in December.
The multinational giant’s interim leadership, chaired by Fiat heir John Elkann, spent much of December on a peace mission following Tavares’s abrupt departure at the beginning of the month.
“There's a strong desire among the management team to really work on that. We wanted to address [that] pretty directly,” Ostermann said.
The placatory tour included a meeting between Elkann and French president Emmanuel Macron, where Macron reminded the chairman of France’s importance to the company via its roots in Peugeot and Citroën.
Later in December, Stellantis management met Italian politicians to calm fractious relations between the two.
Along with France, Italy has the biggest stake in Stellantis's European success, via the Fiat, Alfa Romeo and Maserati brands, but is less cost-effective than countries such as Poland, where the new Alfa Romeo Junior is made. Stellantis was forced by the Italian government to change the car’s name from Milano.
The right-wing government led by Giorgia Meloni clashed with Tavares on numerous occasions as Stellantis vehicle production in the country fell to 475,090 in 2024, a low not seen since 1956.
At the meeting, Stellantis outlined its commitment to keeping all its Italian plants open and increase output starting in 2026 with a range of new models, including a new promise of the production of “at least” two cars based on the new STLA small platform. The latter is a big deal in a country whose automotive output has been underpinned by the high production of affordable models.
Stellantis management also extended an olive brand to its dealers in Europe and the US, who have been badly hit by Tavares’s strategy of selling fewer, higher-margin models rather than keeping the metal moving with price cuts and finance deals.
Stellantis's European head, Jean-Philippe Imparato, met with his region’s dealers soon after Tavares’s ousting, while Elkann flew over to the US to placate the dealer council there.
Council leader Kevin Farrish hit the headlines in September after blasting Tavares in a letter for leaving dealers in a diminished state through “reckless short-term decision-making to secure record profits”.
Elkann’s overtures were well received. "It meant a great deal to us," Kevin Farrish told Reuters. "We have a ton of opportunities to fix what Mr. Tavares harmed."
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