Why Exor’s Iveco overturns in Piazza Affari
The shares of Iveco Group are selling on the stock exchange following the news that board member Olof Persson will become the new CEO of the commercial vehicle manufacturer (an Exor group company) in place of Gerrit Marx (who will move to the helm of CNH).
Difficult Monday in Piazza Affari for Iveco Group.
Dividend detachment and reorganization at the top knock down the Exor group company (John Elkann's holding company which also owns Stellantis , Cnh Industrial and the Gedi publishing group) given that the commercial vehicle manufacturer is widening its losses compared to the opening: the stocks suffered a decline of 4.7%, settling at 11.57 euros. Furthermore, the company's prices have been weak since April 8, after reaching the maximum of 14.58 euros, Radiocr reports.
In fact, Exor's exchange rate maneuvers at the top of its two main industrial groups have shaken investors.
Yesterday the board of directors of Iveco Group announced that Olof Persson, currently an independent director of the group, will replace Gerrit Marx in the role of CEO of the group with effect from 1 July 2024, when Gerrit Marx will leave Iveco Group and return to CNH Industrial, where he had already been president of the Commercial and Specialty Vehicles division from 2019 to 2021 (when Iveco Group was spun off from CNH), and where he will replace the current CEO Scott Wine.
All the details.
IVECO GROUP SHARES SLIPPING
At 2.30 pm the Iveco stock dropped 3.25% to 11.74 euros per share, but the detachment of the dividend from 0.22 euros per share has an impact (today eight companies of the Ftse Mib are detaching the coupon, with a weight overall of -1.53%).
With the publication of the 2023 accounts, on 9 February Iveco announced a dividend of 0.22 euros per share, for a total of approximately 59 million euros – the first since the creation of the group following the spin-off from CNH Industrial, approved by the shareholders at the end of 2021 with the listing of Iveco Group which took place on 3 January 2022 — and proposed a share buyback program of up to 130 million euros, "subject to market and business conditions".
THE REorganization AT THE TOP FOR IVECO AND CNH
The performance on Piazza Affari shows that the news of the reorganization at the top surprised the market.
Olof Persson, current independent director of Iveco, will become the company's new CEO in place of Gerrit Marx. Persson actively participated in the development of the plans presented at the Capital Markets Day in March and has an impressive career in the automotive industry. In fact, he was previously, among other things, CEO of Volvo Group, recalls the group's note. “On behalf of everyone at Iveco Group I would like to thank Gerrit for his energetic and effective leadership over the last two and a half years and wish him every success in the role he will take on. We are fortunate that Olof, with his consolidated experience in the sector, will become CEO, ensuring continuity in the execution of the plans presented in March”, commented Suzanne Heywood, chair of Iveco Group.
Therefore Marx, current CEO of Iveco Group, spun off from CNH in 2022, will return to CNH starting from 1 July.
In CNH Industrial Marx is called upon to "bring the same energy and focus that he so effectively demonstrated while leading Iveco Group", said Heywood, at a time when CNH has to deal with "a downward cycle of the end market, placing the emphasis on managing inventory and costs, expanding margins and leveraging the full potential of the new technology stack.”
SCOTT WINE'S EXIT FROM CNH INDUSTRIAL
Marx will take over from current CNH Industrial CEO Scott Wine, whose request to leave the company at the end of the current three-year business plan cycle to pursue other interests was accepted by the Board of Directors.
In the more than three years that Wine has been CEO, CNH has become a pure-play in the agricultural and construction sectors after its split from Iveco Group and is now listed exclusively on the New York Stock Exchange.
In fact, at the beginning of 2022 CNH completed the Iveco spin-off project , to focus on agricultural machinery and earthmoving machinery. Shortly before, in 2021, it purchased the US Raven, which develops precision agriculture technologies, for 2.1 billion dollars. A year ago the company announced an agreement to acquire Hemisphere Gnss (Hemisphere) , a global leader in high-performance satellite positioning technology, currently owned by Unistrong, a company incorporated in the People's Republic of China.
In this period the company has reported record revenues and EBIT margins, more than doubled research and development expenses, launched margin improvement and value enhancement initiatives and by May 2024 will have returned more than $3 billion to shareholders in the form of dividends and share repurchases.
With the appointment of Marx as the new CEO of CNH with effect from 1 July 2024, the Board of Directors of CNH Industrial has decided that the presentation at the Investor Day scheduled for 21 May will be postponed to a later date to allow Marx to lead the planning and objectives of the company's next phase of development. The first quarter financial results, expected on May 2, will be presented by Wine, who will continue to serve as CEO until the end of June.
INTESA SANPAOLO'S COMMENT
“The news came in a totally unexpected way, as demonstrated by Cnh Industrial's decision to postpone the Capital Markets Day. In our opinion, the timing is not ideal (shortly after the presentation of the new Iveco Group industrial plan and before the Cnh Cmd ). For this reason, we expect potential volatility on the securities of both companies", explain Intesa Sanpaolo analysts, underlining that "Persson's extensive experience in the industrial sector should reassure investors to a certain extent on the potential continuity of the execution of the industrial plan, with confirmation of the main strategic guidelines of the group".
INTERMONTE FORECASTS
As Bloomberg recalls, Marx's departure from Iveco comes after he announced a reorganization of the business into five separate units last month, a move aimed at unlocking the value of the company's brands while improving transparency.
However, Iveco Group's first quarter financial results will be presented by Gerrit Marx, as expected, on May 10th. In this regard, Intermonte analysts predict "a solid quarter with prices holding up".
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/economia/perche-iveco-di-exor-si-cappotta-a-piazza-affari/ on Mon, 22 Apr 2024 13:18:12 +0000.