Stellantis Takes Surprise $2.7B Loss as Trump Shakes Market
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Stellantis NV’s new CEO Antonio Filosa offered investors a first glimpse of his plan to overhaul the struggling automaker for a global car market that has being reshaped by President Donald Trump.
The 52-year-old Italian on July 21 announced a surprise 2.3 billion-euro ($2.7 billion) first-half net loss — analysts had expected a small profit — as the maker of Jeep SUVs and Fiat cars tallies the costs of trade wars and scraps investments in electric and hydrogen vehicles to account for reduced demand. Trump has dialed back U.S. support for EVs since he returned to the White House.
Filosa is trying to “kitchen sink” the first-half results “to provide a low earnings base upon which to build,” Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Michael Dean said in a note.
The new CEO, in office for roughly a month, is responding to big changes in the auto market as well as the company’s previous missteps. Trump’s moves are raising costs and upending global supply chains, while Chinese manufacturers led by BYD Co. are pushing into Europe’s stagnant car market. Stellantis’ issues are gravest in the former profit center North America, where its shipments fell 25% in the second quarter after Filosa’s predecessor Carlos Tavares angered dealers and unions with a series of painful cost cuts.
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Stellantis on July 21 flagged some 3.3 billion euros in pretax net charges it incurred in the first half — mainly due to expenses from canceling costly programs including one on hydrogen with Michelin and Forvia SE, and shifting investments from electric to hybrid vehicles. The company also cited a roughly 300 million-euro hit from U.S. tariffs as it lost production and responded to higher duties.
Stellantis shares fell as much as 3.8% in Milan before regaining some ground to trade 0.5% lower in the early afternoon. The stock is down around 38% this year.
The company has been falling behind in the U.S. due to an aging lineup, model delays and pricing blunders. Filosa is now under pressure to overhaul the product offering in the country as local drivers gravitate toward hybrids. The Trump administration has made a series of moves that will hurt demand for battery-powered cars, such as eliminating penalties manufacturers faced for missing fuel-economy standards and phasing out federal tax credits of as much as $7,500 toward EV purchases.
But reversing its fortunes there may take some time as Tavares’ stringent cost cuts — like swapping metal parts for plastic ones on rugged vehicles — alienated longtime customers and hurt Stellantis’ stable of brands that also include Ram, Dodge and Chrysler.
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Filosa, who lives in the U.S. and previously ran Jeep, also is contending with excess production capacity in Europe, where deliveries remain sluggish and some of its brands, notably luxury-car maker Maserati, are burning money. The company’s global vehicle shipments fell 6% in the second quarter amid declines in North America and Europe.
The company still hasn’t issued a new financial guidance for this year due to the uncertainties over how tariffs will develop. Stellantis said it disclosed preliminary first-half figures on July 21 to address differences between analyst forecasts and its performance in the period.
Any strategy changes got held up by Stellantis’ monthslong CEO search after Tavares left in December. Chairman John Elkann eventually settled on Naples-born Filosa, a seasoned company insider who joined Fiat in 1999 and later rose through the ranks as a protégé of the late Fiat Chrysler boss Sergio Marchionne.
