[ad_1]
(Repeats the story that ran Saturday with no change of title or text)
By Agnieszka Flak and Pamela Barbaglia
MILAN / LONDON, July 21 (Reuters) – Sergio Marchionne s & # 39; is inclined Saturday as one of the most demanding and stubborn leaders in the industry, his health in crisis after a career in which he saved Fiat and Chrysler, two of its most tiered brands.
Fourteen years after driving Fiat, the 66-year-old Gruff was replaced as the boss of the Fiat Chrysler Group (FCA) that he built. He had suffered serious complications from shoulder surgery and his health was deteriorating, the company said.
FCA gave no further details.
In Italy, where his recovery from Fiat earned him a legendary status, he was treated like a rock star. The former philosophy and accounting student almost never wore a tie and preferred casual sweaters, half joking, which saved her time getting dressed up.
A fat smoker until he quits the habit a year ago, he was known to have worked extraordinarily long hours before getting sick. He demanded that others keep such a grueling schedule, which earned him the reputation of his friends and enemies to be stubborn and arrogant.
"I have the impression of living in a tunnel.It is not only demanding, it wants your whole life dedicated to it," said a banker who worked with Marchionne on various transactions in recent years.
Some could not follow his approach 24 hours a day
"He sends you an e-mail at any time and wants an answer within five minutes, even in the middle of the night." If you do not answer quickly, you lose the warrant, "said another banker.
" I did not start having a life and seeing my family when I stopped working with him. "
During his last public appearance on June 26, Marchionne, tired and out of breath, presented his Jeep Wrangler jersey to the Italian paramilitary police, the Carabinieri, at a ceremony in Rome.
A few days later, he went to Switzerland to undergo what the FCA described as a shoulder operation. FCA did not say what happened after he left the operating room, except that he suffered from complications that suddenly worsened on Saturday.
At a meeting of the council of On Saturday, the FCA chose as successor the head of its Jeep division, Mike Manley, and expressed its "deep sadness" to Marchionne's condition.
Marchionne did what many thought impossible, including his huge gamble a little over a decade ago when he set in motion the marriage between then sick Fiat and his failed American rival, Chrysler. It is now the seventh largest global car manufacturer and debt free. "The time of Sergio Marchionne as CEO of Fiat is already legendary," said Max Warburton, an analyst at Bernstein, earlier this year.
His clever scam kept investors on board and earned him praise, even from competitors. Fiat's value has increased more than 11 times, helped by the spin-off of CNH Industrial trucks and tractors and the Ferrari sports car group, fueling the expectations of other upcoming transformation offerings.
I LIKE TO FIX THE THINGS & # 39;
"It can be said that Sergio has a bad temperament.You can say that he is a bad father because he never spends time with his children, but you can never question his leadership as He did a miracle job at Fiat, "said another person who worked with him.
The son of a rifleman, Marchionne was born and raised in the impoverished central region of Abruzzo, Italy. His family moved to Toronto at the age of 14 to escape what his father saw as the boundaries of an Italian company obsessed with talent status. Marchionne earned congratulations for his turnaround skills in 2004-5 when he rescued Fiat, the largest Italian industrial group with a century of history and a global workforce of 200,000 people , near bankruptcy.
"I like to settle things and to be frank, Fiat needs a fix right now," he said after his appointment as CEO in 2004.
For 14 years He pursued these goals relentlessly, sleeping on the couch of his private plane, passing between the offices of Detroit, Turin and London.
A tough negotiator known to get his way, in March 2005 forced General Motors to pay Fiat $ 2 billion for not exercising an option to sell its auto division to the US automaker.
It flattens an inflexible hierarchy, replacing layers of middle management with meritocracy.
It took an expensive cost, drastically reducing the number of car platforms, and formed joint ventures to share development and manufacturing.
He entered into a partnership with Chrysler before buying back the rest in an agreement that he orchestrated during his Christmas vacation in 2013, on a Florida beach, during a meeting in head- that his relatives did not know. .
He revived Chrysler by betting that his Jeep brand should be taken globally. Jeep is now driving the growth of Fiat Chrysler.
He took the bold step of stopping the production of unprofitable sedans in the United States and re-equipping the factories to boost the production of SUVs and lucrative trucks, a decision that was taken up by his rivals.
Known by direct reports in Italy as "he Dottore" and by his American lieutenants as "The Boss", Marchionne ran the leadership team of an iron fist, the people who work in close collaboration with him say.
LOSE THE MIDAS TOUCH?
Marchionne has an impressive track record of creating shareholder value, but has been less successful in delivering a series of recent ambitious turnarounds.
Profitability in Europe is only gradually recovering and FCA has not yet made any significant breakthrough in China. He has not yet made a profit with Alfa Romeo who, with Jeep and Maserati, was at the center of the latest strategy launched in 2014.
Marchionne refused to follow his rivals and invest in the company. Electrification, before finally making a U-turn of a strategy unveiled in June.
It also leaves FCA too dependent on North America, an area that is expected to soon leave its heights.
Even though his attempt to merge with his biggest US competitor GM to share the costs of making electric and autonomous vehicles was postponed several times, Marchionne admitted that a merger for FCA was "inevitable in the end of account ".
"Being small, cute is not going to do anything," he said last year. "Go home, go to a beauty salon and do something else."
Edition of Mark Bendeich and Diane Craft
Source link
