By coinnews 
00:00 Speaker A
Big Three automaker Stellantis, owner of brands like Jeep, Dodge, and Chrysler, is appointing a new CEO after a months-long search, following the surprise departure of former CEO Carlos Tavares. Here with more details, we’ve got Yahoo Finance senior autos reporter Pras Subramanian here. All right, Pras, take us into what you’ve been able to evaluate on this.
00:27 Pras Subramanian
Yeah, you know, Brad, it took six months to name an insider, which is interesting, but yeah, Antonio Filosa, former Jeep head, current Americas CEO, 25-year veteran of the company, now the new official CEO of Stellantis. So, uh, he was sort of, the writing was on the wall that an internal candidate like him might, might have been selected and, and he was there, but you know, it seems to be a good fit based on his background and based on the brands that he worked at. Now, some of the challenges he faces: a big part of the, of the problem last year was inventory. They had bloated inventory. They’ve been kind of selling that down, but that’s going to hit margins because of, of the price cutting. He’s just going to sort of write the ship there, uh, introduce more products that, that people want that don’t require, uh, huge discounts. There’s also the ongoing labor disputes with the UAW. You know, they have their, their new deal in place, but factories like Belvedere in Illinois where they make, where they make the, uh, some Jeep products have been idled for, for a couple of years. There’s a lot of resentment there between the UAW and Stellantis about, uh, some say unfairness or, or, or lack of honesty with regards to what’s happening there. He has to sort of fix that as well. And of course, tariffs, right, tariffs are, uh, ongoing there, they’re affecting the company. 25% tariffs on, uh, products from Mexico, Canada, and Europe, where Stellantis is based. A lot of those products are coming in from those regions. They have to figure out, how do we boost North American production? And things like that. And also, of course, EV strategy. How do you get that in place here in the country where EVs are still selling highly, but, uh, kind of coming down a bit, and the EV tax rate is sort of under threat. So, we’ll see what happens. But a lot on his plate right now for Antonio Filosa.
03:03 Speaker B
Yeah, and Pras, just about a minute left. What is Wall Street’s reaction to the pick so far?
03:10 Pras Subramanian
Uh, because of the fact that the pick was sort of expected in some regard, uh, we knew that he was a potential candidate. You’re seeing a mixed reaction. They’re a little down 1%, uh, not nothing, nothing too crazy there for Stellantis. You know, if you would’ve picked a big outsider, you could have seen a big pop in the stock, but I think, uh, the board kind of feels that an insider right now might be the best choice, uh, considering the company is under a lot of transformation.
03:47 Speaker B
All right, Pras, we got to leave it there. Thank you so much.
03:51 Pras Subramanian
Thank you.