Ferrari Hires Chip Specialist as CEO Amid Industry Pivot
June 09 2021 - 6:18AM
Dow Jones News
By Eric Sylvers
MILAN -- Ferrari NV has hired a top executive from the
semiconductor industry as its new chief executive, as the car
industry focuses on microchips and digital technologies that
increasingly control everything from the brakes to entertainment
systems.
Benedetto Vigna, 52, will take over at Ferrari on Sept. 1. Until
then, John Elkann, the company's chairman, will continue as interim
CEO. Mr. Vigna is currently a divisional president at
French-Italian semiconductor manufacturer STMicroelectronics NV,
where he has worked for more than 25 years.
In announcing the appointment, Mr. Elkann cited Mr. Vigna's
"deep understanding of the technologies driving much of the change
in our industry."
The global chip shortage that has led to production delays in
the auto industry is expected to continue for months to come. That
has called into question the auto sector's rebound as the severity
of the coronavirus pandemic recedes in many countries.
The pandemic's economic fallout has hit orders for Ferraris and
other luxury cars. Ferrari issued a profit warning in May, saying
that because of the pandemic it wouldn't meet profit targets it had
set for itself for next year. The company pushed back the target to
2023.
Mr. Vigna follows on the heels of Louis Camilleri, who ran
Ferrari starting in July 2018 following the sudden death of Sergio
Marchionne, who was CEO of both the fabled sports car maker and the
former Fiat Chrysler group, now part of Stellantis NV.
Mr. Camilleri, a former tobacco executive who also had no
car-industry experience, stepped down in December 2020 following a
bout of Covid-19. He had a successful run at the helm, boosting
Ferrari sales and profit until the pandemic upended the auto
industry.
Many analysts had expected Ferrari to appoint an executive with
experience in the luxury-goods industry as the auto maker works to
expand its brand beyond cars into products such as apparel and
leather accessories.
In his years running Ferrari, Mr. Marchionne successfully
pitched it to investors as a luxury-goods company that should be
valued in a similar way to the likes of Hermès International SA and
LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton. That has allowed Ferrari to
achieve a market capitalization of EUR35 billion, equivalent to
about $42.6 billion, many times that of some mass-market car makers
with bigger operations.
Write to Eric Sylvers at eric.sylvers@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
June 09, 2021 06:04 ET (10:04 GMT)
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