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Chief Executive Officer Louis Camilleri, 65, retired with
immediate effect citing personal reasons late on Thursday, after
being in the role for nearly two and a half years.
Chairman John Elkann, the scion of Italy's Agnelli family, will
lead the company on an interim basis while a permanent successor
is found.
It was not long before names of possible candidates emerged.
A spokesman for F1 dismissed rumours that the former head of
Ferrari's racing team and ex-Lamborghini chief Stefano
Domenicali could take Camilleri's role, saying he was looking
forward to starting his new job as F1 CEO on Jan. 1 as planned.
A source close to former Vodafone CEO Vittorio Colao also said
media reports about him as a candidate for Ferrari's top job
were groundless.
Besides Domenicali and Colao, Italian media cited other names
including Apple CFO Luca Maestri and Apple former Chief Design
Officer Jonathan Paul Ive as possible candidates.
Although Camilleri's sudden departure comes at an unfortunate
time for the carmaker, the appointment of a replacement was
unlikely to be rushed.
"It will take the appropriate time," a source close to the
matter told Reuters.
Like Camilleri, who had years of experience in the tobacco and
food industries before taking the helm at Ferrari, a new CEO
need not necessarily be an automotive expert.
Ferrari is often seen by analysts and investors as a luxury
goods maker rather than an automotive specialist, and as well as
leading Ferrari's ongoing effort to expand its vehicle line-up
to hybrid technology, last year Camilleri launched a plan to
widen the brand to apparel, accessories, entertainment offers,
luxury products and services.
Intesa Sanpaolo analyst Monica Bosio said finding a successor
"capable of managing Ferrari's peculiar business model, facing
at the same time Ferrari's current issues in F1," was no easy
task given Camilleri's retirement also occurs "in a
technological transition phase".
In the F1 championship, Ferrari haven't won a race all year and
with only one left to go, the team's current 6th place could
leave the Prancing Horse nursing its worst result for 40 years.
SHARES PERFORM
Camilleri was appointed to lead Ferrari in July 2018, after the
sudden death of former CEO Sergio Marchionne. During his tenure
Ferrari has been one of the best performing auto stocks, as
demand for its high performance cars remained strong, even
through the coronavirus pandemic.
Under his leadership, Ferrari shares rose around 50% and have
hit record levels, with those listed on Milan's bourse touching
an all-time high of 182.95 euros ($221.70) last month.
The shares closed up 0.3% on Friday compared with a 1% fall in
Milan's blue-chip index.
A Milan-based trader said Ferrari was a well functioning
machine.
"With 200 million millionaires around the world, demand is not
missing, it's not a CEO retiring that can unsettle the company,"
he said.
Citi analysts said whoever replaces Camilleri would inherit a
"significant legacy".
"At the same time, Ferrari faces perhaps the biggest upheaval in
its history with a number of questions around the deliverability
of 2022 profit targets and more pertinently navigating the
launch of the PuroSangue SUV and negotiating the transition to
zero carbon emissions," Citi added.
Ferrari has pledged that 60% of its vehicle sales will be hybrid
by 2022, but has ruled out a fully-electric model.
As customers love Ferrari for its roar and high performance,
analysts say there is a risk it will struggle in the long term,
when silent fully electric engines rule the market and
traditional powertrains are progressively phased out.
In its plan to 2022 Ferrari aimed at nearly doubling its
adjusted core earnings to 1.8 billion-2.0 billion euros from 1
billion euros in 2017. For this year Ferrari has targeted
adjusted core earnings at around 1.125 billion euros ($1.36
billion).
According to a company source, Camilleri - who also resigned as
executive chairman of Philip Morris International (PMI) - had
been hospitalised for COVID-19 in recent weeks.
He is now recovering at home but his illness was not said to be
the cause of his decision to retire.
($1 = 0.8252 euros)
(Additional reporting by Alan Baldwin in London and Giselda
Vagnoni in Rome; Editing by Elaine Hardcastle and Peter Graff)
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