#marchionne

Sergio Marchionne accuses Volkswagen of exploiting the European crisis to gain market share by offering aggressive discounts, the New York Times writes. “It’s a bloodbath of pricing and it’s a bloodbath on margins,” the Fiat and Chrysler CEO told the paper.

Chrysler most likely will announce record growth in market share for March. No such luck for Chrysler’s owner FIAT. Again, Fiat’s Sergio Marchionne is getting in front of a horrible story in order to soften its inevitable blow. Sergio told Italy’s newswire AGI that “March will be a terrible year for the Italian market.”

Unions in the U.S. are happy with Chrysler’s resurgence. Meanwhile in Italy, unions are being blamed for the woes of Chrysler’s parent.

Chrysler’s owner Fiat is in trouble. Fiat has a (declining) market share of 28.3 percent in its home market Italy, a market that had tanked 19 percent in February, and 18 percent in the first two months of the year. Fiat’s sales in Italy, down 20 percent in February, slowed more than the floundering market. Fiat’s southern exposure to the ailing parts of Europe is disproportional. Fiat’s top executives will now have an emergency meeting with Italy’s Prime Minister Mario Monti, Reuters reports. Possibly on the agenda: A closure of another Italian factory, and a cutback on investments in Italy.

For quite some time, Fiat-Chrysler CEO Sergio Marchionne has been busy lamenting the dreadful overcapacity in the European auto industry. He’s doing I so much that slowly, people begin thinking that Marchionne is honestly concerned. “If I would be in his shoes, I would be concerned too,” said an audibly unconcerned European auto exec, who requested anonymity. My friend thinks that when Marchionne talks about the European car industry, he is talking about Fiat.

Now, Marchionne has a plan how to fix the chronic overcapacity at Fiat in Europe.

As dark clouds bunch up over Europe the less healthy of the many European carmakers frantically look for friends that help them get through the hard times ahead. Fiat-Chrysler is “talking to everyone,” CEO Sergio Marchionne told Reuters. Marchionne isn’t picky when it comes to corralling companions: “We can be an active partner everywhere around the world.”

“Roughly, we’re looking at a number in the neighborhood of 20 percent of installed capacity that may be viewed in terms of being structurally redundant,” Marchionne said. I guess he wants (but does not dare) to say that every fifth car plant in Europe should be closed and its workers fired.

How does Marchionne want to do this? The American way:

Chrylser’s U.S. plants are working flat-out, and reopening closed plants is not an option, Fiat & Chrysler CEO Sergio Marchionne tells the Milan daily Corriere della Sera in a wide-ranging interview. Plants and workers in other countries, such as Mexico, Canada or Europe will have to fill a third of the U.S. demand for Chryslers. Marchionne thinks that “demand for cars in Europe will remain low for long. At least until 2014.” He counts on increasing U.S. demand for made-in-Italy Chryslers to keep his Italian plants open. If that demand should slacken, then …

Sergio Marchionne always had been a proponent of the “the world only has room for six large global automakers” theory. Fiat and Chrysler isn’t necessarily a marriage between two robust partners. Especially in the Asian growth markets, both are weak. According to Italy’s Corriere Della Sera, Marchionne is rekindling a years-old flirt with France’s PSA Peugeot Citroen. Of course, none of the presumably dating companies will confirm the rumor. However, the rumor was started by Sergio Marchionne himself, in Detroit.

Usually, when you bring a car from Europe to be made in the U.S., you need to bring something else: Money. You know, for buying real estate for a plant, machinery, that kind of thing. Except when you are Fiat. In that case, a thankful U.S. government hands you yet another 5 percent of Chrysler, as a token of its appreciation, for what amounts to be a token act.

Jack Baruth showed you the Alfa-based new Dodge Dart – but what does it mean? For Sergio Marchionne, the little car means a lot. It means the final five percent of Chrysler, to be exact.

Chrysler CEO Sergio Marchionne wants an end of what he called “two classes” of employees represented by the United Auto Workers union. The two-tiered system “creates the kind of environment that doesn’t appear to work in the same direction that we’ve been trying to use to establish the new basis of Chrysler,” Marchionne told Reuters. He continued:

Chrysler-Fiat’s Sergio Marchionne is joining the chorus of doomsday CEOs. “2012 will not be a great year for the European market,” Marchionne told Reuters. He is looking to the U.S. and to Brazil for salvation – despite GM’s Akerson having made equally dire forecasts for America.

Fiat is doing so badly at home in Europe that the U.S. and Brazilian markets are now the biggest contributors to the combined group’s profit.

After the U.S. and Canadian government are out of the car business, at least as far as Chrysler is concerned, Fiat will own 52 percent. Who owns the rest? A large chunk, 45.7 percent, is owned by the UAW. By the UAW’s VEBA healthcare fund, to be exact. And the union is in no great hurry to change that. The UAW has a big “HOLD” on their share of Chrysler, hoping that the value goes up. That’s what “two people familiar with the fund’s strategy” told Reuters today.

Fiat has reached an agreement with the U.S. Government that will give Fiat 52 percent of the shares in Chrysler and therefore the final controlling majorioty. The Treasury said on Thursday it will sell its remaining 6 percent equity stake in Chrysler to Italy’s Fiat in a deal that will net Washington $560 million, Reuters reports.