Welcome to the Daily 5 report for Thursday, Oct. 23.
Carlos Tavares parted ways with Stellantis 10 months ago, but the outspoken former CEO is still stirring things up. Today, he released a book in Europe, highlighted by his speculation that Stellantis could be broken up if it can't satisfy its stakeholders in North America and Europe.
"One possible scenario, and there are many others, could be a Chinese manufacturer one day making a bid for the Europe business with the Americans taking back the North America operations," he wrote in the book. This will allow a refocus on their own market, like General Motors has been doing for the past 10 years, Tavares said.
Within Stellantis, "I am worried that the three-way balance between Italy, France and the U.S. will break," Tavares wrote, according to a Bloomberg story. The group's survival as a standalone company will depend on management paying attention to unity "every day" given the risk of being pulled in multiple directions, the story said.
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Of course, this renews the question of whether the merger of Fiat Chrysler and France's PSA Group should ever have taken place, but that's no more than a barroom debate now.
Transnational mergers and alliances have proved difficult across the industry for decades for many reasons, including financial and cultural. Chrysler and Mercedes-Benz merged in 1998 to form DaimlerChrysler, only for Chrysler to be jettisoned in 2007 when it became a millstone.
GM and Fiat partnered in 2000 to swap shares and form a joint venture for purchasing and powertrains. The alliance was scrapped in 2005 when GM paid Fiat $2 billion to exit the partnership and regain control of its assets, while allowing GM to avoid a costly buyout of Fiat Auto and Fiat's need for cash.
One of the big gripes since the merger took place has been among North American stakeholders complaining it was now a French company run by a guy who stayed in France.
Tavares, in the book, stands by his French loyalties.
"With me gone, I am not sure that the French interests that I always had at heart — whether you believe it or not — will be as well defended," Tavares said in the book.
To his credit, Tavares praised his successor as CEO, Antonio Filosa, calling him the "logical and rational" choice to run the company, Bloomberg said.
Tavares, 67, has never shied away from speaking his mind in public. It doesn't look like that's going to change even with him no longer running Stellantis.
That's it for now. If you want to view this story in your browser, click here.
David Phillips contributed to this report.
— Philip Nussel, online editor
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