PSA to halve lineup in push for 2% margins by 2018

PSA/Peugeot-Citroen outlined plans to cut its model lineup by almost half and to turn Citroen's DS unit into a separate brand in a bid to restore the automotive division’s profit.

By 2018 the carmaking unit’s operating margin will amount to 2 percent of sales, with the figure rising to 5 percent in the 2019-2023 period, CEO Carlos Tavares said today in his strategic review of the Paris-based automaker. 

Tavares, 55, became head of PSA at the end of March to guide a reorganization after cumulative net losses exceeded 7.5 billion euros ($10.4 billion) in the past two and a half years.

PSA said today that the strategy hinges on reducing the number of models to 26 vehicles from 45, as well as a push into markets outside Europe, funded in part by bringing in Chinese partner Dongfeng Motor Corp. and the French state as investors alongside the Peugeot founding family.

"The group will continue to reposition the three brands, while clarifying their lineups," PSA said in a statement. Scaling back the range of models will allow the company to "improve market coverage and improve margins by targeting the most profitable segments." 

The DS nameplate, revived five years ago as a higher-priced small-car range, will get its own separate management team amid an "aggressive" push into China. The brand will sell six vehicles by 2022.

PSA said it is reorganizing sales operations, and reiterating a target to triple Chinese deliveries in partnership with Dongfeng by 2020, along with restoring profit in Russian and Latin American businesses.

"What we're going to stop is a mindset where in order to cover fixed costs, we're going to sell cars at a loss," Tavares said today on a conference call with analysts. "The profit culture is something that we need to put ahead of everything else."

Spending on research and development will average 7 percent to 8 percent of revenue in the next three years, Tavares said today on a conference call. PSA is targeting 2 billion euros in operating free cash flow in 2016 through 2018, the company said.

'Minimum requirement'

Erich Hauser, a London-based automotive analyst at International Strategy & Investment Group, said: "It seems to be the minimum requirement, but it’s a start. When you run a big ship like this, you can’t expect to turn it around in a few years."

Dongfeng and France will each contribute about half the money for a 3 billion-euro capital increase planned by PSA in exchange for 14 percent stakes apiece, according to an agreement reached in February. The family’s ownership will drop to 14 percent from the current 25.5 percent, ending their control of the 118-year-old carmaker. 

Tavares joined PSA in January from French rival Renault, where he was chief operating officer, to succeed Philippe Varin as CEO. The business plan puts Tavares’s stamp on the carmaker’s revival after Varin, 61, arranged to bring in the outside investors and started developing upscale models for the Peugeot brand.

Varin introduced Citroen’s premium DS vehicles in 2009, taking the name from an iconic model produced from 1955 to 1975.

“What’s really interesting is that Tavares is clearly taking a leaf out of Renault’s Drive the Change plan,” International Strategy’s Hauser said. “It’s very similar: in the very near term, it’s about fixing cash and in the longer run, it’s about returning to profitability.”

PSA was among the carmakers hardest hit as industrywide European auto sales contracted over six years to a two-decade low, with the company’s market share narrowing to 10.9 percent in 2013 from 12.8 percent in 2007.

Job cuts

Varin set a target about four years ago for PSA to generate 50 percent of its deliveries outside Europe by 2015.

Varin responded by starting a cutback of 11,200 jobs in France, or 17 percent of its work force in the country, shutting a plant near Paris last year and bringing out new models, such as the 2008 small SUV, to revive demand.

The proportion of PSA’s non-European sales increased last year to 42 percent, with China accounting for 20 percent of the total, from 38 percent in 2012.

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