Sergio Marchionne, CEO of FIA, wants to acquire the PSA group. Is it this one?
It is not new to anyone that Sérgio Marchionne, Fiat CEO, has been doing everything he can to acquire Grupo PSA (Peugeot/Citroen). Things have calmed down a little lately while Marchionne has been entertaining acquiring Chrysler – without spending a penny(!) – and therefore, overnight, setting up a distribution network in the USA to sell Italian models as well. understand, utilizing Chrysler's already installed capacity. But now that Mr. Marchionne has done what he had to do there on the sides of Uncle Sam's land, the spotlight is once again on the eventual acquisition of the PSA group.
In an interview with Automotive News this week, Marchionne confessed that he will "certainly take a look" at PSA, implying that the sector urgently needs a new industrial giant to attack the massive 23.3% market share that Volkswagen holds currently. Less than 24 hours later, it would be Frederic Saint-Geours, president of Grupo PSA, to comment on the statements of his Italian counterpart, showing openness to a possible merger, "we are open to proposals" as long as "we find the right partner", he reiterated .
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Merger or not, the truth is that the situation is starting to be complicated for the PSA sides, even if they weren't the only French group still without a partner. Renault anticipated and found its better half in Nissan's Japanese… And isn't it that things have been going well?
Then, in addition to the issue of market shares, there is also the issue of research, development costs and economies of scale only possible in a large group. And the truth is, PSA alone can do little against the VW group. Until 2016, Volkwagen already has an ongoing investment plan in innovation and development in the order of 63 billion Euros. Figures that contrast with the much more modest, but equally impressive, 3.7 billion euros a year that the PSA group has invested on average in recent years. And this is, in fact, the aspect on which analysts put the accent: either the other car groups manage to innovate at the speed of the Volkswagen Group, or else, in the future, we will have an even more polarized car market.
Sérgio Marchionne is certainly aware of this reality, so much so that the newspaper La Repubblica, citing internal sources, has already ensured that the Agnelli family, the main shareholder of the Fiat Group, is eventually preparing a capital increase of 2 billion euros in the sense of paving the way for the merger with PSA.
Unlike the merger with Chrysler, which took the market by surprise, the union with PSA is, as I said earlier, talked about for some time. The two groups have been working together for over 30 years and share the production of some models (see photo). If the deal were to materialize, the Fiat Group, together with the association with the American manufacturer Chrysler and the union with the French of PSA, would make the Italian group very strong, capable of facing companies already consolidated in the market, such as Volkswagen or from Toyota to equal to equal.
Now it's wait and see… and find out if it's this one!
Text: Guilherme Ferreira da Costa
Source: Auto News