For our next session, which obviously is incredibly well attended, so thank you. I'm delighted to welcome Doug Ostermann, new CFO of Stellantis. Doug has a very extensive career within the automotive industry, and I think that obviously, given some of the challenges facing the industry and also Stellantis, that experience is going to prove invaluable as we look to the next 12 months-24 months. Doug, thank you so much for joining us, particularly given the news flow over the weekend. And maybe we could just start with that. I think obviously there was a management shakeup back in October, and you became CFO, but at that point it looked like Carlos was very committed to fulfilling his contract through to Q1 2026. Perhaps you could just, you know, to start with, confirm, does the company stick to its 2024 guidance?
Has anything changed operationally that has led to the decision in the last few days, and maybe also, as we look forward, perhaps you could just also highlight some of the issues that were cited in the press release in terms of maybe where Tavares and the board had different views on how the next 12 months should evolve?
Okay. Yeah, sure. Sure. That seems to be kind of the question of the day, by the way. But yeah, we did confirm the guidance, as you saw in the announcement over the weekend. So we are still with guidance of AOI between 5.5% and 7% for the full year and negative free cash flow in the -$5 billion to - $10 billion range. And, you know, I'd say in the fourth quarter, you know, we've made quite a bit of progress so far. We had talked in the Q3 call about trying to bring U.S. dealer inventories down below the 330,000 unit level before the end of the. Originally the target was to do that before the end of Q1. Then we kind of said, well, we'd like to accomplish it this year. In the Q3 call, I said, well, we'll probably actually hit that in November.
In fact, we hit below that level in the second week in November. At the end of the month, you know, I think we were more around the 310 level. We've made good progress on that front. You'll also have seen that we've kind of adjusted a lot of pricing and things like that to help the sales pace. This month in particular, we had some headwinds on market share. Some of the plants that are key to our production, we had down, obviously, to help correct the inventory situation. We weren't able to deliver a lot of fleet sales this in November, and so that impacted our market share. But that's more of a kind of temporary situation. I think we're making some good progress on kind of bringing things back into alignment, if you will.
And that should give us a, you know, a lot of confidence to be able to launch into then 2025 in a, you know, much more healthy way. And I think, you know, we need to be able to show the industry and the investor community really what our business is capable of. And certainly this year is not representative of that. On the kind of second part of your question, because I do want to address that one, it seems to be kind of the big question in the room is, you know, on Carlos's departure, and I worked with Carlos for the last four or five years. I have a huge amount of respect for him.
And of course, everybody at Stellantis is very grateful for all the contributions that he made really in bringing the company together, initially bringing two different groups from the two organizations together to kind of be one team, and really to realize, you know, such a large chunk of the synergy potential within the first few years. So really incredible track record. But I think, you know, in the last, I would say, three to six months, and certainly I wasn't, you know, party to all the discussions between Carlos and the board, so I don't want to, you know, there's only so much perspective I can give you. But I think there was kind of increasing divergence on, as I perceive it, on kind of two topics.
One, clearly I think there was some disagreement on what the priorities should be and how to run the business kind of in the remaining time of his tenure, which would have been, you know, kind of 15, 16 months, and so, and I think, you know, from my perspective, most of those related to kind of tactical issues on how to run the business over that kind of short-term time period and what action should be taken in regard to kind of short-term metrics versus kind of longer-term benefit of the company, and the second area I would say was really in kind of how we interact with our key stakeholders, and by our key stakeholders, I mean really our dealers, our suppliers, our unions, the governments in all the regions in which we operate.
Those are areas where I think clearly, you know, we need to build back trust, and so I think there's a strong desire among the management team today to really work on that, and it'll take time, but I think that's an area that we wanted to address pretty directly. That being said, I think that I also want to make clear that I don't think there were any real disagreements in terms of long-term strategy.
If you look at, you know, the key elements of our strategy in terms of going with multi-energy platforms, going with a product plan that really will whittle us down from kind of 20 platforms to eventually more like four platforms, our asset light strategy in China, our partnership with Leapm otor, our desire to build up kind of this strong third engine, you know, between Latin America, MEA, IAP as kind of a diversification of the income of the company. All those things, you know, we feel very confident in. I think they're all very solid strategy. I think in hindsight, some of them are turning out to be even stronger than we thought going in. And so I don't think there was any divergence on those things. I don't think you'll see any change in that direction.
Obviously, one of the questions that is always raised when we see management changes is, does that mean the strategy changes? And Stellantis has the Dare Forward 2030 strategy in place. How do you think about that strategy, some of the transformational targets that the company is looking to achieve, and specifically the double-digit margin target that the company has had for many years?
Yeah, I mean, I think most of the elements of Dare Forward are clearly in place. And as I kind of outlined, some of the main strategy elements I think are turning out to be quite advantageous. So for instance, if you look at our decision on multi-energy platforms, I think there was a lot of kind of criticism at the time from various corners, you know, really questioning whether or not we could create efficient BEVs off of multi-energy platforms, you know, were we trying to have kind of one foot in both worlds and would this work out? And I think if you look at our new launches, for instance, the E-3008, you know, the larger battery version of that has a range of 700 km.
If you look at the ratio of kind of battery size to range, it's right up there in terms of efficiency with the best vehicles in the market. Now, to be fair, our engineering community designed those platforms to be BEV-first, to be super efficient BEVs, and then package protected for the ICE and mild hybrid type powertrains, right? But we, I think, have shown that you can be multi-energy in a platform and really deliver great BEV products. And so, you know, of course, in the shifting sands that we see on this EV adoption rate, this is turning out to be actually quite a good strategy. Part of it, of course, was because we're a global company and we saw that there are different adoption rates in different parts of the world.
I mean, I just spent the last two and a half years in China where today, like over 50% of the vehicles sold have some sort of battery in them, right? So it's a completely different level of adoption than what we see, for instance, in the U.S., and so it made sense for us to be multi-energy. But I think now that we also see the impact of shifting administrations, different priorities, this strategy is turning out to be quite strong. Now, in terms of kind of the double digit, which I know you wanted me to address, you know, we of course delivered on the double digit pretty strongly over the last couple of years.
This year, obviously, because we're in the mode of correcting some heavy levels of inventory, kind of adjusting our pricing as we kind of come out of this period of scarcity, you know, this year is clearly not representative of kind of the long-term potential of the company. You know, whether or not the environment going forward, if double digit is the right number or not, you know, we'll have to see. But clearly, I think there are some very strong reasons to believe that we will be able to show significant improvement next year because of a couple of things. One, we're correcting kind of this inventory and pricing situation that we have this year, but also really filling in a lot of those white spaces kind of that we have in our market offer, both in the United States and in Europe.
We have a lot of great and very exciting product that hasn't been launched on time, but it is coming in the coming months. So we'll be able to fill in some of those holes in the product gap. Most exciting probably is, you know, mid-year we're going to get the Cherokee replacement in the United States. That is, as you know, the largest segment in the market. It's 20% of the market. We have no product there. So that's a big hole for us that's impacting, of course, market share, the new Charger Challenger, you know, which will be the Charger Daytona coming in, Wagoneer S, Recon. We've got so many great products coming. Also on the full-size truck lineup, which of course is a big moneymaker for us. We have the new HD products coming in the first quarter, the Ram 2500, 3500.
We have a new BEV version of that pickup, and I think really, really importantly, we have a new range extender version of that powertrain, which I think is going to be very exciting. You know, coming from China, that's like one of the fastest growing powertrains in China. And it's just, I think, going to offer a lot of advantages. We'll be the first people to offer that in a full-size pickup and then later in a full-size utility. I think it's going to be a very exciting product, and then in Europe, really filling in the B-segment and C-segment, which we're effectively, you know, have very few products in today, but have many sister cars coming that will fill in that. That should help our market share in Europe quite a bit as well. I think there's some strong reasons to, when we look forward, to be very confident about our ability to perform in 2025.
I think one area which investors have been very focused on is the loss of market share in North America, and you kind of answered it with respect to the Cherokee, for example, and certain white spaces where you just don't have product today. Is that the principal driver of why you have seen so much market share loss over the course of the last 12 months-24 months? Or has there also been an element of maybe your pricing has been too ambitious?
I think, you know, to be fair and balanced, there has been an element of the pricing. You know, we came into the year with pricing that was on many of our vehicles $2,000-$3,000 above our main competitors. And you see that in the, you know, the average transaction price data. We had some pretty strong pricing. We were kind of exiting this period of kind of relative scarcity where we had taken a lot of pricing. I think, to be fair, the management team in North America really didn't adjust quickly enough. And of course, we heard that very clearly and loudly from our dealer body as well, both privately and publicly. So we did need to make some adjustment there.
And of course, we have adjusted price significantly, particularly on the, you know, the 24 and older models that the dealers, you know, really were holding. And we needed to put some incentives into the market to kind of clean up that stock. That's been pretty successful. Over the last kind of two to three months, we've seen increasing market share in North America. This month of November, as I mentioned, is a little bit of an outlier because of the fleet situation. But clearly, part of it was the pricing piece. But I would say a big, big chunk of the decline in market share is simply because we have been blank in some very key opportunistic segments, right? So not to have any SUV entry in the largest segment of the market, you know, for a brand like Jeep, you know, is a big hole to fill.
And we're very excited about filling it and offering people what's going to be a great product with a mild hybrid powertrain, which has been very, very popular both in Europe and in the United States. So I think that's going to be really great. But we don't get it until kind of mid-year. So it'll take time to fill in all those holes.
Obviously, lower price points, you know, should help the volume and the share. But investors here will be saying, well, if I take $1,000 of price off the table and times it by the volume, you know, we're running into billions of dollars of EBIT sacrifice. What are you doing on the variable cost to, you know, offset the price down? And, you know, what's the capability to neutralize the cut in price in terms of taking the variable cost down?
Yeah, so a couple of things there. One, a lot of the incentives that we've been putting on, we're focused on kind of the 2024 and older models. And we've been successful at kind of drawing that down. As the mix changes, you know, we'll have to look at where we go with the 2025s. As you may know, we've announced that we've adjusted the MSRP on four of our main Jeep products to be lower to reposition the cars a bit. But we'll also be bringing down the incentive spend. So average transaction price probably won't change much from where it is today. But clearly, a lot of the market share build will be on the new vehicles that I mentioned, right? We have kind of four new EV vehicles. We have the new HD pickups, the new Cherokee replacement, et cetera.
A lot of those, you know, will be kind of white space entries. So we won't be, you know, we should be able to get pretty strong pricing on those. But on the cost side, there is, of course, always a lot of work to do, and we have an organization that is well known for that, right? I mean, we have a good reputation in that area. I think we have a strong team in that area, and we're going to continue to work with our suppliers to both engineer cost out of the products themselves, but also around the globe looking at kind of best cost or low-cost countries for sourcing opportunities. So, you know, in Europe, that's Eastern Europe and to an extent China, Latin America, where we're very strong, you know, we're the market share leader in Latin America. We have a lot of opportunity in those markets where we have kind of deep expertise to take advantage of a supply chain that should support cost downs for us.
Maybe just a final one on the U.S. Clearly, trade and tariffs have been very topical, and there's been discussions around USMCA. What contingency actions can you take in the event that tariffs on Mexican and Canadian cars are increased?
Yeah, yeah, we obviously have been looking at it. I think we've been very open and public about the fact that, you know, we have roughly 40% of our products produced in Canada and Mexico. And we have great plants there. I mean, very good quality, very good cost. And so I think, you know, while we look at all these scenarios, we also are, you know, reaching out. And as we have with past administrations, you know, hoping to have a good dialogue, give them input, right? And help shape. But we understand that it's their responsibility to manage U.S. trade policy. And obviously, we'll adjust as needed. I think when I look at our footprint, you know, we have available capacity in the United States that will allow us to adjust if and when, you know, those types of tariffs come into place.
A lot of our Ram products, you know, we have industrialized in Michigan and the Detroit area, but we also have them industrialized in Mexico. So there's opportunities to shift some of the mix more into the plants. We've already industrialized the product in both locations. So we would have an opportunity to shift some of the mix and debottleneck things like that to try and help the capacity. But we also have, you know, as you know, some unallocated plants. So for instance, Belvidere in Illinois, you know, we have capacity around that we can make those shifts. It's not ideal for us, as it won't be for any of the automakers. But I think we have perhaps, you know, a more flexible footprint when I look at the United States and many of our competitors. And so we should be in a good position to adjust, you know, if and when needed.
Maybe switching tack to Europe a little bit. You already mentioned that also in Europe, product delays had led to white space in the market. We've seen that in your sales data and the market share evolution in Europe. What led to those product delays in Europe? And when will that product be readily available, not just in the initial markets, but across Europe more generally?
Yeah, so as I mentioned earlier, we're introducing kind of these four new platforms. Many of them are being introduced at kind of plants that haven't produced that size vehicle before as well. And when you introduce kind of multi-energy platforms, there's a lot of work that goes along with that to producing both, you know, the ICE powertrain and the BEV powertrain in the same place. These new vehicles are, you know, we're basically coming in with the first top hats off of these brand new platforms at new plants oftentimes, not new to our system, but it's the first time maybe they've produced multi-energy. And there's a lot of software, frankly, in these new vehicles. I mean, the consumer experience is fantastic because you have this, you know, all these screens and this great amount of electronics.
You've got these new powertrains that are super efficient and deliver kind of instant torque and they're fun to drive. They have great NVH, you know, noise vibration harshness. They're just really nice. But to get the first product off of a new platform right with all this new technology is extremely important for us. We've seen a lot of our competitors struggle with software in particular. We have not been immune to that either. So we want to get it right. And that oftentimes drives whether the consumer kind of in those first days has a great experience or has a disappointing experience, right? And so to get the first top hat off the new platform right is extremely important, not only for the benefit of that vehicle in building a good reputation from the get-go in the market, but also for, of course, all the sister vehicles.
But of course, the downside is when you delay the first vehicle, you delay all the sister vehicles. But in the B segment case, you know, we've had successful launch now of the C3 and the ë-C3. The order bank for the ë-C3 is particularly strong, which is great to see. It's well above what we would need for, you know, percentage of compliance, et cetera, in Europe, even though the compliance standard has gone way up. And so we're very encouraged by that. Of course, the ë-C3 is one of the most affordable EVs out there. It's about EUR 23,000. We have a version coming in the near future with a slightly smaller battery that will be under EUR 20,000. I mean, that's a great deal for a fantastic vehicle.
But we're still missing, you know, the launch of C3 Aircross, Opel Frontera, the Fiat Grande Panda, which will be a huge car for us. So those are all coming in the next few months, so in kind of the first quarter of next year. And we're very excited that until we get them into the market, we're still going to have that kind of market share gap.
You mentioned the ë-C3's contribution to CO2 compliance. How confident do you feel about CO2 compliance in Europe in 2025 based off your sort of existing planning assumptions and obviously, you know, fairly muted demand for battery electric vehicles in Europe at this point in time?
Yeah, I mean, you know, we've been prepared. I mean, the standard jump is pretty significant. So it's a good question, right? It's a fair question. But we've been planning for it for years. We've known it's coming. And we have a lot of exciting EV product and mild hybrid product that's coming in Europe. The initial consumer response, which of course in Europe is real, you know, typically sold orders as opposed to the United States where you have dealers kind of ordering for stock. The consumer orders out of Europe for those products, the new 3008, 5008, the new ë-C3 has been fantastic, much higher percentage than what we'd need for compliance, as I mentioned. If that carries through to the sister vehicles, I think we'll be in good shape. But it's early days. It's early days.
In addition, of course, you know, we have some other levers that we're looking at. Of course, as you know, we are just launching the Leapm otor brand in Europe, and we have over 200 dealers now supporting Leapm otor brand, which is mainly EV, although we'll be introducing some range extenders there as well, but I think that's very exciting. It's a way to also generate some compliance activity as well, so I think there's multiple levers that we'll be looking at in meeting our compliance obligations here, but I think we're well prepared, and I think that's why Carlos, you know, historically had been not very aggressive in terms of saying, you know, let's change the rules or anything like that, because we feel prepared.
I think obviously you have also experience as treasurer of FCA, and so, you know, cash management is probably very core to your heart. You know, Stellantis has run with negative working capital for many years, and sometimes the corporates say, what's wrong with that? I'm getting the cash in early and I'm not paying people till I have to. But we see the pain of that this year in the free cash flow. How do you think about the amount of negative working capital on the balance sheet going forward, and given you'll probably finish this year a lot closer to neutral than you have been in some time, is that a level you want to sustain going forward?
Yeah, so it's a great, great question, and you're right, it is very near and dear to my heart. You know, so a couple of things on the topic. One, I would like to see us get to a more neutral working capital position. Because when you have, we operate in a volatile industry that's also very cyclical, so you're going to have times where things are on the downswing, and if you have, you know, a significant negative working capital cycle, as you know, you get these big shifts in cash flow, and that's why I think, you know, some people were a little shocked by the revised guidance, right? To say, oh, wow, is it really that big? Okay, well, that's part of it, right, and so I think if we could get, you know, part of my objective is to get to a more neutral position.
And I think it will reduce the volatility that we see in our cash flow. And also on the back of that, I think if we're more respectful of kind of supplier terms and things like that, we can also help the relationship with our suppliers, frankly, right? By not stretching them so much. So I think there's opportunity there that could be a win-win, win for us and win for the supplier base as well. And I think some of those adjustments can be managed within the guidance that we have for this year as well. So there's an opportunity for us. In addition, I personally would like to work on cash conversion because I think the company, even historically, even if you ignore this year and you just look historically, I don't think we've been as strong on cash conversion as we can be. We've been, you know, at lower percentages than many of our competitors. And I think it's again an opportunity for us to do a better job. So both those are high on my list.
Obviously, given the free cash flow evolution this year, a lot of questions are asking, you know, what is Stellantis's commitment to shareholder returns, both with respect to the dividend and the buybacks? How are you, maybe it's too early, but how are you kind of conceptually thinking about this? Are you looking at 2024 in isolation? Are you taking into consideration the EUR 23 billion plus you generated in the two years prior to this year? What's your sort of initial take on how you should think about shareholder returns over the next 12 months?
Yeah, thanks for the question. That's too early. No, I'm just kidding. I'll talk a little bit about it. Look, I mean, part of what I'm proud of working as, you know, as a former group treasurer was to build a fortress balance sheet. And the reason we built up a fortress balance sheet was because, as I said, we operate in a volatile industry, a cyclical industry. We know there are going to be those downswing periods, right? And so we prepared the company for years like this. And we did that so that we don't have to address all those things like change our capital policy and things like that. And so I think there are two key factors that will go into that discussion with the board.
And one is that, you know, our balance sheet can sustain this and still remain within the ranges that we've talked about, which is 25%-30% liquidity target as a percentage of, you know, trailing revenue, right? And so when we look at that, we were way above that for quite a while. We're running at like 40%. I think this year will bring us down more into that range, but we're in kind of that range of what we think is efficient, right? So I think that's one factor. And the second factor is really our confidence in the ability of the business to generate cash and perform in 2025. And I think given those factors, I feel strongly that we will have a dividend. We'll have a good discussion, I think, also around buybacks.
Given where our stock's at right now, I think it's pretty attractive for us. But as you mentioned, we'll have all those discussions. Once we have kind of finalized numbers for the year, we have our full business plan built and approved by the board for next year. We look at them in combination and we'll make those decisions. But I think it'll be quite a good discussion.
Obviously, it's definitely too early to provide any guidance on 2025, but 2025 is clearly going to be a challenging year for the industry, both in terms of volume evolution, price mix, and some of the headwinds from CO2 compliance. For Stellantis, given some of the one-off items that have happened this year, or arguably one-off items, is 2025 an opportunity for you to get things back on track?
For sure. And the first step in that, right, is making sure we do a good job of the corrective actions this year, right? What we don't want to do is to carry some of these issues into next year and cloud our performance and then have to say, well, that's also not really our potential. We want 2025 to show the full potential of the company and get things really, as painful as it is, get things really aligned this year in the business. But I think next year is a tremendous opportunity to show improvement from a number of perspectives. One, correcting the misalignments we had this year. But two, just this new product rollout that we have that is going to fill in so many white spaces that we're just blanking, right? I mean, significant upside on volumes and share. So I think that's very important.
And then also take advantage of this consolidation of greater volumes on these new platforms to drive down cost, right? Because the key componentry, you have limited ability to do that across 20 platforms that were designed and implemented by two different companies historically, right? Now you have one set of four platforms to drive common component sets on, larger volumes for our suppliers, greater spread of overhead, and hopefully we can both share in that. And it'd be a good opportunity for them and for us.
Great. Well, we have a few minutes left. Sorry, I've monopolized most of your time, but a few minutes left to open it to the floor if there are any questions.
Learn what you've learned from Leapm otor. Leapm otor is now, I think, playing catch-up with the three big EV startups in China. It's obviously something you know a lot about. Perhaps you're instrumental in that context. Yeah. So what can you learn from Leapm otor about in terms of intelligence? And what can you bring to the international markets, particularly since, at least my perception, that the U.S. are way behind China with regard to intelligence?
Yeah, that was a great question. I need like a couple of hours to really answer that question, so we'll find time. But yeah, my top line. Look, I was very instrumental in that transaction. And I currently sit on the board of Leapm otor. And I think they're a very impressive company for all the reasons that you stated. And what can we learn from them? Well, a couple of things. One, deep commitment to vertical integration and really understanding kind of a systematic approach to EVs, right? I think that's very, very interesting. The fact that, you know, when you really dig down into the management team and the leadership of Leapm otor, what you find is fundamentally a bunch of electrical engineers. And they approach the vehicle from that perspective.
I could go on for hours on what that means, but I think you get a general idea. It's a very different approach, right? And a very interesting approach. And then similar to us, I mean, and this is one of the reasons I thought it was such a nice company to work with and to acquire 21% of and to be involved with, is that they have very similar culture in attacking costs and really driving down costs over time and taking advantage of a supply chain, which we understand part of in China, but they're deeply into in China. And of course, that's a supply chain in China that we need to take more advantage of.
It's a supply chain that has a different cost structure for a number of reasons, but one of the most obvious is that when 50%, actually over 50% of the vehicles sold in China today have this battery electric componentry, the scale of the supply community is just completely different, right? And so the advancement of the technology in each area, right, is also different because they have that level of volume, right? And so we need to, you know, take more advantage of that as well. But I could go on for hours, so I'll stop there, but those are three biggies.
Yeah, address the intelligence part of Leapmotor, you know, the presentation of mobility, for example, ADAS.
Yeah, I mean, look, I mean, when you talk to these guys, you know, it's a foregone conclusion that they're going to do all the software themselves. Of course they are, right? Because they come at it from this kind of a little bit different perspective of having been kind of electrical engineers, right? So again, this kind of integration, doing everything yourself, having it all work together, doing all your own software, and the amount of resource they dedicate to different parts of the vehicle is very interesting. The way they do their development cycle is very different. So there's a lot to learn, a lot to learn.
What about in the form of Stellantis, which is a much bigger company? Will you adopt the sort of same Apple full-stack approach as Leapm otor might be doing, or will you, like Mercedes would be doing, run with a momentum?
Yeah, I mean, I'm not here to announce any new developments with Leapm otor, but let me talk more generally, okay? You know, I think it's a partnership that is going very well right now. The launch of their products in Europe, being supported by over 200 dealers today, the first two months has been fantastic. The reception has been really strong, and so I think that bodes well for the JV that we control, by the way, that has exclusivity on all sales and manufacturing of Leap products outside of China. So I think that piece of it's going to go very well, but I think that's just scratching the surface. I think there's a lot more to come.
Great. Well, look, thank you everyone for joining this session. And a big thank you to Doug for joining us.