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Investors want answers about Marchionne’s final days

The mystery of Sergio Marchionne's surprise death last week continues, with investors now questioning the timeliness of disclosures by the company and family. Bloomberg reports that Italy's market regulator is making a routine check into how Fiat Chrysler handled communications regarding his illness. Fiat Chrysler's stock is down 12 percent in both Italy and on the New York Stock Exchange since the announcement of Marchionne's death. University Hospital Zurich last week issued a statement saying that Marchionne, who died July 25 while recovering from an unspecified should surgery, had been treated for more than a year for a serious illness that it didn't define. Marchionne's family told Reuters the companies hadn't been aware of his health conditions. The Italian business website Lettera 43 reported July 5, and FCA later confirmed, that Marchionne had undergone shoulder surgery in a Swiss hospital. But the company later denied a July 20 report by the website that Fiat Chairman John Elkann planned to meet with company leaders to divide Marchionne's responsibilities. Yet the FCA board indeed met on July 21 and chose Mike Manley, who had formerly overseen the Jeep and Ram brands, to succeed Marchionne as CEO. The company on July 25 published a brief statement acknowledging the former CEO's death. "Unfortunately, what we feared has come to pass. Sergio Marchionne, man and friend, is gone," Elkann said in the statement. Marchionne told no one outside his inner circle — reportedly not even Elkann — that he was seriously ill. His partner, Manuela Battezzato, who works in Fiat's press department, told Bloomberg that Marchionne's family didn't tell the company about his health condition. The famously hard-working CEO, who had quit smoking about a year ago, had also reportedly stopped responding to messages and calls from some advisors since the end of June. People close to him told Bloomberg that Marchionne died from complications following the shoulder surgery, including two cardiac arrests. Image Credit: Ferrari flags hang at half-staff at the Hungarian Grand Prix / Getty Chrysler Fiat Sergio Marchionne

Marchionne emailed Barra about merger between FCA and GM

Sergio Marchionne is adamant that global automakers will have to merge to remain profitable in the near future, and he'll tell that to anyone who's listening. Mary Barra, however, is not interested. According to The New York Times, the Fiat-Chrysler chief proposed a merger with General Motors via email to his counterpart back in March. Marchionne proposed meeting to discuss the matter, but Barra and her team reportedly rejected even entertaining the idea. This of course is not the first time Marchionne has raised the idea of a merger. He masterminded the marriage between Fiat and Chrysler, and reports have since suggested further mergers with Volkswagen, Peugeot, Ford, and others – including GM's own Opel unit. Some have taken his calls for consolidation as a weakness, but Marchionne insists that his empire is in good health – and that it's the industry as a whole which is in an untenable position. According to his view, automakers around the world need to align themselves into larger groups in order to reduce redundancy in investment, development and infrastructure – the duplication of which he terms as wasteful. "It's fundamentally immoral to allow for that waste to continue unchecked," said Marchionne to the Times. "I think it is absolutely clear that the amount of capital waste that's going on in this industry is something that certainly requires remedy," he said in a conference call with industry analysts late last month following the rejected GM approach. "A remedy in our view is through consolidation." News Source: The New York TimesImage Credit: Paul Sancya/AP Chrysler Fiat GM Sergio Marchionne merger fiat chrysler automobiles

Fiat previews a new Panda, and a whole Panda-based range of global cars

Fiat isn't attending the Geneva Motor Show, but that hasn't stopped it from going to Geneva ... Italy. That's right, there's a dainty patch of ground in Brescia called Ginevra, which is Italian for Geneva. Fiat CEO and Stellantis' chief marketing officer Olivier Francois has pulled another sly one, hosting his own miniature auto show at a bar in Ginevra to showcase Fiat's coming range of global models. The presentation is all about the Panda, old and new, with Fiat reworking the spirit and ethos of the 44-year-old nameplate into four concepts that start with an all-new Panda on Stellantis' global platform, then branch into two updates on popular current products and two all-new products. After winning the Stellantis family sales title with 1.3 million units moved last year, Francois said of the brand, "[Our] next step will be to transition from local products to a global offer that can benefit all of our customers everywhere in the world," embodying the philosophy that "functionality should never exist without fun." A plan for sharing up to 80% of parts between models, on top of that shared platform, is the key enabler. And just as we mentioned yesterday with Jeep, Fiat's talking big about the range of available powertrains, with ICE, EV, hybrid and PHEV in the mix.   Here's the heart of the new range, your all-new Panda just like it says on the door, called "City Car" in the video. Fiat will present this one to itself and the world in July this year during the company's 125th anniversary. In it can be seen the basic idea of the concept Fiat presented to itself as a 120th birthday present, the Centoventi Concept revealed at the 2019 Geneva Motor Show (the one in Switzerland). We heard nothing about the Centoventi after that, its fundamentals showing up first in the Citroen C3, and from there back to Fiat with this all-new Panda. Francois called this a sort-of "Mega Panda," a phrase we want on a T-shirt, boasting a crossover-like upright design, higher driving position, and increased roominess. The entire range will emphasize sustainability, ease-of-use, and modularity. The Panda demonstrates ease with the retractable charging cable emerging from the hood. Inside, the oval motif in places like the dashboard and seats recalls Fiat's original factory in Turin, the Lingotto building with the oval test track called the La Pista 500 on its roof. If you're looking for competition to the dashing little Renault 5 that did make the trek to Switzerland, this is it.