Stellantis is considering putting Italian carmaker Maserati up for sale after its shipments halved, triggering a €349m (£294m) writedown on the brand.
The owner of the Jeep, Peugeot and Vauxhall brands said revenue from its Maserati cars fell to €631 million in the first six months of 2024 from €1.3 billion a year ago.
Stellantis Chief Executive Carlos Tavares said Thursday the company was willing to sell underperforming brands, adding that there was “absolutely no taboo” in shedding assets.
Maserati, whose supercars cost up to £222,000, has pledged that all its models will have an electric alternative from next year as part of its “Folgore” (lightning in Italian) line. The carmaker has also committed to offering an all-electric range by 2030.
The company posted its first operating loss since its owner Stellantis was created by the merger of Fiat Chrysler and France’s Peugeot in 2021.
The division lost 82 million euros in the first half, compared to a profit of 121 million euros 12 months earlier.
Stellantis has previously prided itself on ending the luxury brand’s “boom and bust” period, saying it expected the division to be consistently profitable.
On Thursday, the automaker took a €300 million writedown on its business, which its chief financial officer Natalie Knight said was prompted by a “reset” of the division’s business plan. Maserati has been urged to cut costs while waiting for its bet on electric vehicles to bear fruit.
Maserati started selling its first electric vehicle, the £180,000 GranTurismo Folgore, in February, although it didn’t start delivering the cars until June, meaning this will have had only a minor impact on the figures.
Ms Knight told Bloomberg that Stellantis would study where the “best location” was for the brand, while Mr Tavares said the company was preparing to close underperforming businesses and that they were “there to be exploited”.
“If they don’t make money, we’ll close them,” he said. “We can’t afford to have brands that don’t make money.”
There have been rumors that Maserati could be a potential candidate for an IPO, and Stellantis has said it would consider splitting the company once it is on more stable footing. However, Mr. Tavares appeared to dismiss that idea last year.
The manufacturer sold only 3,200 vehicles in the second quarter of 2024, the lowest level in several years.
At the same time, Stellantis Group announced that its profits had halved, sending shares of the world’s fourth-largest carmaker down 10%.
Sales fell sharply in the United States and Europe and the company said it was considering cutting prices to boost demand.
Mr Tavares called the figures “disappointing and humbling” but said the company was going through a “very important transition period” ahead of a wave of new models.
“It’s a bump in the road that we’re working to resolve,” he said.
Many automakers are suffering from weak demand, especially for electric vehicles, as rising interest rates weigh on new vehicle sales. At the same time, they face increasing competition from Chinese automakers.
Japanese automaker Nissan said Thursday its quarterly profits fell 99 percent and cut its full-year profit forecast by a fifth.
Mr Tavares said his company had triggered a “strategic review” of its UK operations because of the country’s zero-emission vehicle (ZEV) mandate, which requires manufacturers to gradually increase the proportion of electric cars they sell, from 22% this year.
“We have a specific problem to solve in the UK,” he said. “The UK has shown that with the ZEV mandate it is a very difficult market, [it] seriously undermines our economic model. This leads us to review our economic model, in particular our industrial footprint.
“We have two factories in the UK that manufacture battery electric vehicles [battery electric vehicles]”The UK government is calling for more electric vehicles. We cannot find ourselves in a situation where our business model is undermined by the mandate for zero-emission vehicles.”
Mr Tavares said the company had discussed the mandate with the British government and there had been an “intensive and productive dialogue” but that “so far we don’t have the answers we need”.
His comments echo warnings from Maria Grazia Davino, Stellantis’ UK chief executive, who said in June that the company could close its Ellesmere Port and Luton plants, where it makes vans, unless the government relaxes its rules. The Labour Party has pledged to reinstate a ban on sales of new petrol and diesel cars from 2030.
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