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Chrysler officially rebrands as FCA US LLC

Detroit's third-largest automaker has had a lot of names over the years. It was founded as the Chrysler Corporation in 1925, a name it held until 1998 when it was bought by ze Germans in 1998 to form DaimlerChrysler AG, then it went independent in 2007 under the name Chrysler LLC before being retitled once again as Chrysler Group LLC in 2009. And now the automaker headquartered in Auburn Hills, MI, is getting yet another new name. Announced today and effective immediately, the company formerly known as Chrysler will now be called FCA US LLC. That's a lot of letters, but they make a lot of sense, too: FCA stands for Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, the US telling us this is the company's American division and the LLC tells us it's a limited liability company – a legal classification similar to (but not quite the same as) a corporation. The announcement comes shortly after the company decided to phase out its long-serving Pentastar logo. The sum total is that the once-independent industrial giant is now formally part of a larger European parent company, owned by Fiat and (for taxation purposes, anyway) based in the Netherlands. What the company formerly known as Chrysler wants to emphasize, however, is that FCA US LLC will remain based in Auburn Hills and retain its "holdings, management team, board [and] brands." Chrysler Group LLC Announces New Company Name: FCA US LLC U.S.-based Automaker's New Name Aligns With Global Parent December 16, 2014 , Auburn Hills, Mich. - Chrysler Group LLC, the Auburn Hills, Michigan-based automaker, today announced that it has changed its company name to FCA US LLC. The name change is effective immediately and follows the naming convention of its global parent company, Fiat Chrysler Automobiles N.V. (FCA), which officially adopted its new name in October when it listed on the New York Stock Exchange. The name change to FCA US LLC does not affect the company's headquarters location in Auburn Hills, Michigan, its holdings, management team, board or brands. FCA US, together with parent FCA, continues to work toward the business plan presented on Investor Day in May 2014. Additionally, the Company remains proud of its joint heritage. FCA US continues to build upon the solid foundations first established by Walter P. Chrysler in 1925 as well as a rich Fiat heritage that dates from 1899. FCA US employs more than 77,000 employees worldwide, with 96 percent of its workforce based in North America.

FCA profits surge in second quarter

Fiat Chrysler Automobiles gave the cash register a beating in the second quarter, improving its net profit to 333 million euros ($364M US), which is a 263-percent jump over its reported Q1 profit of 92 million euros ($108M US). At the same time, FCA improved its global profit margin to 7.7 percent. Compared year-over-year, in Q2 2014 FCA reported net profit of 197 million euros making this year's Q2 a 69-percent increase, and profit margins a year ago were 4.9 percent. The two big factors for this increase are strong NAFTA sales and Jeep. In the US alone, Jeep sold 222,940 units in Q2 this year, a jump of almost 20 percent over the same period last year. Revenue in the NAFTA region totaled $18.8 billion, adjusted earnings before interest and taxes were $1.45 billion, both of those numbers more than doubling compared to 2014. The vastly better numbers come on marginally more global sales, 1,181,000 units sold in Q2 2014, 1,193,000 units sold in the same span this year. In the US, FCA began charging dealers one-percent more for vehicles to up the margins, a move that helped boost its US margin from 4.1 percent a year ago to 5.8 percent the first half of this year. The company is holding steady on its guidance of global deliveries at 4.8 million and its net profit guidance at $1.1 to $1.3 billion. It has increased its adjusted outlook for the year to $120.5 billion in revenue, and EBIT to "over $4.93 billion." News Source: Automotive News - sub. req.Image Credit: AP Photo/Carlos Osorio Earnings/Financials Chrysler Fiat Jeep FCA

Marchionne recruiting activist investors to prompt GM merger

Sergio Marchionne may have been rebuffed in his previous advances at General Motors, but he's not about to give up that easily. According to The Wall Street Journal, the Fiat Chrysler chief is now turning to activist investors to help coax GM into joining forces. Marchionne has been a staunch and ceaseless advocate of the need for consolidation, arguing that the industry needs to amalgamate into larger groups that will share resources and reduce overhead. Under his leadership, the Fiat group consolidated its own operations, and officially merged with Chrysler last year. But he's also been pursuing additional mergers with the likes of Volkswagen, Peugeot, Ford, and Opel (to name just a few). Now he's pursuing a merger with GM, which has not shown much enthusiasm towards the idea. For one thing, GM is a much larger company, and probably doesn't need FCA as much as FCA needs it. For another, it has a troubled past with Marchionne, who in 2005 dissolved an agreed merger (of sorts) with GM, yet still managed to get the General to pay Fiat some $2 billion in the process. However, Marchionne is evidently hoping that the intervention of activist investors could compel GM CEO Mary Barra and company to proceed with a merger anyway. For precedent, he's looking at the recent negotiation between GM and some of its stakeholders that prompted the company to buy back $5 billion of its own shares, demonstrating Barra's willingness to deal with investors. The more compelling precedent, however, may have been set in 2006, when activist investor Kirk Kerkorian locked arms with Carlos Ghosn to get GM to consider joining the alliance between Renault and Nissan. GM ultimately declined, and Ghosn turned instead of Daimler (which of course has its own history of having merged with Chrysler). Only time will tell if this initiative will prove more successful, but one thing's for sure, and that's that Marchionne isn't about to relent in his pursuit of a major merger partner.