According to foreign media reports, Aston Martin CEO Tobia Morse is expected to leave the company, and he will be replaced by former Ferrari CEO Amedeo Felica. People familiar with the matter said that Aston Martin will announce Morse's departure at the same time as announcing the company's first quarter results on Wednesday local time.
Morse joined Aston Martin 2 years ago after working at Mercedes-Benz for nearly 20 years.
Aston Martin was in trouble 2 years ago, with shares down two-thirds in the two years since going public in 2018. At that time, Morse, who was the CEO of Mercedes-Benz AMG, was appointed to join Aston Martin as CEO.
In the same year, Aston Martin expanded its partnership with Mercedes-Benz. Mercedes-Benz will increase its stake in Aston Martin by more than 20% by 2023, which will receive key Mercedes-Benz technologies, including hybrid and electric drive systems, to fuel its electrification transition.
Aston Martin's current CEO, Tobia Morse
Morse recalled in an interview with foreign media a few days ago: When he first joined Aston Martin, the company was manufacturing-centric, not engineering-led, which he believed was crazy in ultra-luxury brands, because in brands with small annual sales, the company needed flexibility and agility.
In the two years since his inception, Morse has reduced Aston Martin's inventory from 2,000 to 600 units, and increased sales of custom orders from 6% to 50%, making it a significant increase in profitability.
In the first quarter of this year, Morse also said that Aston Martin plans to achieve the goal of catching up with Ferrari and selling more than 10,000 vehicles a year in the next three years by increasing the proportion of car customization and electrification.
However, analysts say that while Aston Martin has made many changes to achieve the transition, Aston Martin lacks the broad appeal of Ferrari, and the company may not be able to sustain the 10,000-unit annual production needed for long-term investment in new cars.
In the eyes of analysts, Aston Martin, which has gone bankrupt seven times since its founding in 1913 and continues to walk on the brink of bankruptcy, is still squandering a lot of cash. Some have questioned whether the company has the ability to generate sales performance like Ferrari, thus funding the huge costs of the transition to electrification.
According to the data, In 2021, Aston Martin sold a total of 6182 new cars worldwide, an increase of 82% over 2020. The "catch-up" Ferrari achieved global sales of 11,155 units in the same year, an increase of 22.3% year-on-year.
Former Ferrari CEO Amedeo Felica
To catch up with Ferrari, Aston Martin brought in veteran Felica. It is understood that the successor, Felica, led Ferrari between 2008 and 2016, when Ferrari was still part of the Fiat group. Feliza joined Aston Martin last year and is currently an independent non-executive director.