Executive director Luca de Meo will leave the French car manufacturer to find a position outside the automotive industry, the company announced Sunday, and the newspaper Le Figaro reported that it will become the new executive director of Kering, owner of Gucci.
De MEO transformed the French car manufacturer in his five years in command, renewing his strategic alliance of two decades with Nissan and duplicating hybrid engines while moving towards electric vehicles.
The Italian will replace the Kering CEO, Francois-Henri Pinault, whose family controls the luxury conglomerate strongly indebted and who has directed it for 20 years, Le Figaro reported.
Keing declined to comment on Le Figaro’s report.
“Luca de Meo has expressed his decision to resign to face new challenges outside the automobile sector,” Renault said in a statement.
De Meo will leave Renault in mid -July, Renault added. The French State has a 15% participation in the company.
If confirmed, the incorporation of De Meo to Kering, which lately has not convinced stock market investors of their plans to restructure their Gucci brand, would mark a radical change in the group. Pinault would continue to be Kering president.
Speculations about group leadership, which also has the Yves Saint Laurent and Balenciaga brands, accelerated last week after the French media reported that Pinault was about to renounce the CEO post.
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Renault’s head, Luca de Meo, resigns; will direct Kering, the owner of Gucci, says Le Figaro
A person familiar with Pinault’s thought told Reuters on Friday that he was actively working on his succession, which includes dividing the two roles to hire a new CEO.
Kering actions have lost more than 60% of their value in the last two years, marked by a series of warnings on benefits and changes of designers in Gucci, an old source of income for the company and still its most important brand for sales and benefits.
The unexpected departure of De Meo marks the second high level out of a European car manufacturer in six months, after Carlos Tavares renounce Stelalantis (Stlam.mi)., Open a new tab, at a time when the sector in Europe is staggering by the commercial tariffs of US President Donald Trump and the fierce competition of his Chinese rivals.
De Meo joined Renault from Volkswagen (vowg.de), in 2020, a year in which the French car manufacturer reported record losses after a blow to sales induced by the pandemic.
In the following years, De Meo implemented large cost cuts that drastically reduced the workforce and production capacity worldwide and turned the company into a smaller but more agile company.
Renault’s approach in European markets has greatly protected it from disorders linked to United States commercial policies that German car manufacturers such as BMW, and Mercedes-Benz face.
Renault was one of the few automobile manufacturers that did not issue a warning about its benefits last fall. Their actions have risen about 90 % in the last five years, being the manufacturer with the best performance in Europe. Its rival Stellantis has risen 15 % and VW has dropped 38 %.
Keing faces his own recovery needs.
Under Pinault’s leadership, the group became a pure luxury company and enjoyed years of spectacular growth, largely thanks to Gucci. However, since the Covid-19 Pandemia, Kering has had difficulty revitalizing the brand and, in addition, has assumed a debt of more than 10,000 million euros, which now exposes it to the risk of a new reduction of its credit rating, according to Reuters last month.
With Reuters information.
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