Put a Ferrari and Jeep Wrangler side-by-side, and it doesn’t matter if you are a brand enthusiast or not, the difference is obvious.
Or, at least, it should be.
During Wednesday’s first quarter earnings call for Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, company CEO Sergio Marchionne indicated there may not be a difference at all. That is, as far as value.
Marchionne was asked, during the call, whether the automaker's Jeep and Ram brands, either together or separately, could be spun off into a separate, successful standalone company just like he did with Ferrari last year.
"Yes," Marchionne said.
The answer overshadowed, a bit, FCA’s historic first quarter. The company’s profit jumped 34% over this time last year to a record $698.2 million, driven somewhat by performance in Europe as well as Maserati. For the North American market, despite slower overall sales, profits did increase slightly to $1.35 billion from last year’s $1.30 billion.
“We would couch the results as a good start to 2017. We had a record performance," said Fiat Chrysler CFO Richard Palmer.
Marchionne’s comment does not mean FCA is on the verge of spinning off either Jeep or Ram any time soon, however keep in mind he has tried several times to engage other automakers in merger talks only to be rebuffed. If the whole isn't good enough, perhaps Marchionne is throwing out feelers for some of its most interesting parts. At the very least, if FCA continues down this road, its possible Jeep and Ram would be standalone brands under the automaker's umbrella while the less profitable Chrysler and Dodge fade away.
Like Ferrari, both Jeep and Ram are valuable brands with unique assets that would be attractive to another company or to spin off on their own. In fact, based on its recent performance alone, Jeep may be one of the hottest auto brand in the world right now.
Last year, FCA sold more than 1.4 million Jeeps worldwide, roughly four times more than when Marchionne and his team took over via Fiat's acquisition of Chrysler in 2009. FCA is on record that it expects Jeep sales to break the two million mark by 2018 thanks to many promising newcomers.
In addition to a just released reboot of the Jeep Compass, FCA has a new Wrangler on tap for later this year, a Jeep pickup on the horizon for the 2019 model year, and Jeep Wagoneer/Grand Wagoneer models prepping for 2020.
Some in the industry believe that Jeep’s value on a standalone basis, should FCA choose to spin off, would start about $22 billion, while Ram could begin around $11 billion. In contrast, after Marchionne spun off Ferrari last year, it generated more than $3.4 billion in annual revenue and nearly $435 million in net income.
Overall, FCA's global revenue increased 4% to $30.2 billion during the first quarter compared with $28.9 billion for the same period last year.
