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Fiat Chrysler U.S. sales chief Reid Bigland steps down after suing company

DETROIT — Fiat Chrysler's head of U.S. sales is leaving the company after a bumpy career that saw him file a whistleblower lawsuit over a scheme to pay dealers to report fake sales numbers. The company says in a statement that Reid Bigland will leave Fiat Chrysler April 3 after 22 years with the company. He'll pursue other interests. Bigland also headed the Ram brand and Fiat Chrysler Canada. During his tenure the company saw big U.S. sales growth, mainly with the Jeep and Ram brands. But his career was marred by the sales scandal, which forced Fiat Chrysler to restate numbers and pay $40 million to settle a complaint with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Terms of BiglandÂ’s departure werenÂ’t announced, but the company said all legal matters with Bigland “have been resolved to the satisfaction of all parties involved.” FCA CEO Mike Manley thanked Bigland for his service in a company statement. “We all wish him every success in his future endeavors,” Manley said. Bigland said in the same statement that that itÂ’s been a privilege to work at FCA and with the companyÂ’s dealers. Last June, Bigland sued Fiat Chrysler alleging that it withheld 90% of his pay package because he testified in the SEC inquiry of sales reporting practices. He alleged that Fiat Chrysler Automobiles violated Michigan's Whistleblower Protection Act, retaliating against him because he testified in the probe of whether the company inflated sales and deceived stockholders. The company withheld Bigland's 2018 long-term incentive stock payout, special dividends and an annual bonus in retaliation for his testimony and because he sold some stock, according to the lawsuit. Documents say the dividends alone are worth about $1.8 million. In September Fiat Chrysler agreed to pay $40 million to settle an SEC complaint alleging that the company misled investors by overstating its monthly sales numbers over a five-year period. The company inflated sales by paying dealers to report fake numbers from 2012 to 2016, the SEC alleged in a complaint. Fiat Chrysler agreed to pay the civil penalty and to stop violating anti-fraud, reporting and internal accounting control regulations, the SEC said. The automaker did not admit or deny the agency's allegations. Fiat Chrysler said it has reviewed and refined its sales reporting procedures. The SEC said the automaker boasted about a streak of year-over-year sales increases into 2016, when the streak actually was broken in September of 2013.

UAW may be key to forced FCA merger with GM

Sergio Marchionne doesn't give up on a business deal easily. While outwardly not much has recently been said about FCA's attempted merger with General Motors, Marchionne might be hoping to garner a powerful, new ally that could help break things wide open. The United Auto Workers retiree health care trust is the single largest shareholder of GM with 8.7 percent of the stock, and having its support would certainly improve FCA's position in getting a deal done. "Whatever happens in terms of consolidation, it would never be done without the consent and support of the UAW," Marchionne said when FCA recently began contract talks with the UAW, The Detroit News reports. The boss is also allegedly on good terms with the union president Dennis Williams. Still, using the organization for a hostile takeover could be very difficult because of the way its votes are structured. Other activist investors might already be on board, though. Marchionne believes that consolidation in the industry is vital because automakers are investing to create the same technologies. A GM/FCA merger still has many roadblocks, though, including the fact that Marchionne's company is smaller than GM. From a regulatory perspective, the size of the merged company could raise serious anti-trust concerns among regulators, according to The Detroit News. There's also the concern for lost jobs from redundant work with the two combined businesses. Even if the UAW angle doesn't work out, there are contingency plans afoot for other merger targets. According to The Detroit News speaking to anonymous insiders, FCA bigwigs have a meeting in London on Thursday to take a close look at other options. In addition to GM, they are investigating possible deals with Volkswagen and the Renault-Nissan Alliance. In the past, PSA Peugeot Citroen and multiple Asian automakers have also been brought up as partners, and UBS has reportedly been providing financial advice on what to do.

The Hemi deserves to die | Opinion

Hi. I'm Byron and I love V8s. I want them to stick around for a long, long time. But not all V8s are created equal, and I will not mourn the passing of the modern Hemi. You shouldn't either. While we may agree that its death is untimely, if you ask me, that's only because it came far too late.  Stellantis’ announcement of its new, turbocharged inline-six that is all but guaranteed to kill off the Hemi V8 has led to quite a few half-baked internet takes. The notion being suggested by some, that automotive media were brainwashed into believing the Hemi was in need of replacement, is so far divorced from reality that I openly guffawed at the notion. Journalists have been challenging Chrysler, FCA and now Stellantis for years to deliver better high-performance engines. The response has always been the same: “Why?” Why replace a heavy V8 with a lighter, all-aluminum one? Why repackage powertrains for smaller footprints and better handling vehicles? Why be better when “good enough” sells really, really well? I too mourn the departure of good gasoline-burning engines, but since when was the Hemi one? HereÂ’s a quiz: Name every SRT model with an all-aluminum engine. TimeÂ’s up. If you named any, you failed. They donÂ’t exist. This isnÂ’t GMÂ’s compact, lightweight small-block, nor is it a DOHC Ford Coyote that at least revs high enough to justify its larger footprint. The Hemi is an overweight marketing exercise that happened to be in the right place at the right time. That time was 2003, when Chrysler was still Chrysler — except it was Daimler-Chrysler and the "merger of equals" was doing a bang-up job of bleeding the company's cash reserves dry while doing virtually nothing to address its mounting legacy costs. "That thang got a Hemi?" was emblematic of the whimsical, nostalgia-driven marketing of the colonial half of the "marriage made in heaven." That was 20 years ago. 20 years prior to that, emissions-choked American V8s were circling the drain faster than a soapy five-carat engagement ring in a truck stop sink.