Scott W. Wine at the helm of CNH Industrial. The galaxy company Agnelli has chosen him as its new CEO. He will be operational from 4 January 2021. he He comes from Polaris, a company specialized in the production of off-road vehicles, for snow, motorcycles, military vehicles, of which he has been CEO since 2008 and president and CEO since 2013, reporting excellent results.
In fact, in the period under his leadership, Polaris went from a turnover of $ 1.9 billion a year to nearly $ 7 billion. He previously held senior positions at United Technologies Corporation, Danaher and Allied Signal, which became Honeywell International, following a merger in 1999. Thus, the relatively young (51-year-old) top manager has extensive experience in M&A operations in the US, Europe. and in Asia. “The board of directors is fully satisfied with the appointment of Scott Wine, in consideration of his extensive industrial experience and his strategic expertise,” commented Suzanne Heywood, president and chief executive officer pro tempore of Cnh Inudstrial.
“Scott is determined to implement and complete the strategy the company unveiled on its Capital Markets Day in 2019, including the on-highway spin-off plan,” he added. In March of this year, the CEO of CNH, Hubertus Muhlhauser, surprisingly announced his willingness to resign in the midst of the coronavirus emergency. Suzanne Heywood and, therefore, was appointed pro tempore Chief Executive Officer.
The CNH plan envisages separating on-highway (road) activities from off-highway (non-road) activities. For the newly listed on-highway group, pro-forma revenues from industrial activities in 2018 are expected to be $ 13.1 billion and will include the commercial brands Iveco, Iveco Bus and Heuliez Bus (69% of revenues), together to the motor activities of Ftp Industrial (31% of revenues).
On the other hand, the off-highway group, with a pro-forma turnover of industrial activities in 2018 of 15.6 billion dollars, will mainly be a manufacturer of agricultural machinery (75% of revenues), supported by the business of machinery for construction (19% of revenues) and special vehicles Astra, Difesa and Magirus (6% of revenues).
On the stock market, Cnh Industrial shares welcomed the name of Scott W. Wine with + 2.63% at € 8.966. “After more than 7 months from the resignation of Muhlhauser, the replacement of Suzanne Heywood is identified, who has managed the position ad interim with better results than expected in the most acute phase of the crisis generated by the pandemic”, commented Equita Sim, reiterating the rating hold and the target price at 8 euros on the stock. “This is positive news, given Mr. Wine’s considerable international experience in a variety of industries, coupled with extensive M&A experience in the US, Europe and Asia, which could, in our view, give a boost to potential investment options. M&A of the group, including the spin-off of on-highway activities “, said Fidentiis (rating buy and target price between 9.5 and 10.5 euros).
Also for Mediobanca Securities this is very positive news for Cnh as it was expected that the appointment of a new CEO would be a catalyst for the stock. “While we believe pro-tempore CEO Suzanne Heywood has done a good job of leading the company in a very difficult year, we believe the stock’s poor performance this year on the stock market: -11% year to date compared to the positive trend and the all-time highs for the main peers is also linked to the lack of a stable and official CEO “, Mediobanca underlined.
“We expect the new CEO to confirm the restructuring process presented in the group’s latest industrial plan, update the objectives of the industrial plan in line with the 2020 trend of the main divisions affected by Covid-19 and reaffirm the intention to unbundle the Truck plus Powertrain business “, Mediobanca predicted which, therefore, confirmed the outperform rating on CNH (target price at € 10.60) which trades at 14 times the price / profit multiple of 2021 based on the estimates of the investment bank compared to 24.5 times for Deere, 15.8 for Agco, 15.5 for Volvo and 23 for Cat. (all rights reserved)
