Ferrari: How the noble athlete puts the share price under power

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by Klaus Schachinger, Euro on Sunday

Dit worked. The specialists, who recently wanted to present Ferrari with a concept for autonomous driving, were spontaneously invited by group manager Benedetto Vigna to do a few laps on the company’s own Fiorano circuit with a test driver. “When they got out, they said to me: Okay, Benedetto, our presentation is worthless,” said the top manager recently at the capital market day of the sports car icon from Maranello in northern Italy. One can conclude from this that there will be no autonomously driving Ferraris in the foreseeable future. “No Ferrari customer will pay for a computer just to be there while driving. The human driver is central,” says Vigna. As a physicist and chip expert, the boss can probably assess the business potential of driver assistance systems well. Ferrari had poached the top manager from the chip company ST Microelectronics.

Vigna should lead the very special car manufacturer, whose brand is almost a religion, not only in Italy, into the age of electromobility. That could work, because the plan that the boss recently presented on the capital market also convinced stockbrokers: the course accelerated during the presentation.

15 new models by 2026

Vigna is accelerating the transformation of the traditional company: 15 new models, including a supercar, are set to hit the streets over the next four years. By 2026, 60 percent of Ferraris should be running with electric or hybrid drives. By 2030, only a fifth will be offered with an internal combustion engine. In order to increase the capacities for the new drives, around 4.4 billion euros will be invested in the Maranello plant by 2030.

The 296 GTB model shows what the transformation of the car manufacturer, whose V12 cylinder engines are legendary, could look like. Ferrari rolled the hybrid drive car into its showrooms in the first quarter of 2022.

The luxury sports car with a 2.9-liter V6 engine costs around 270,000 euros. The 663 hp combustion engine is coupled with an electric motor that can deliver an additional 167 hp as a performance booster.

Purosangue – the thoroughbred

The first all-electric Ferrari is scheduled to come onto the market in 2025, the first SUV, also with hybrid drive, as early as 2023: Purosangue, Italian for thoroughbred, is the name of the off-road vehicle from Maranello developed for impressive performances in the cities.

In 2017, Sergio Marchionne, the charismatic boss at the time who has since died, said he would be shot if Ferrari stormed onto the market with an SUV similar to BMW, Bentley or Porsche. Now the noble Scuderia from northern Italy is also pushing into the highly profitable segment. Under no circumstances will there be martial-looking SUVs from Maranello. It is said that a filigree line is very important. At the latest when the Purosangue is presented in September it will be seen whether this has been successful.

Success in this attractive market would help Chef Vigna achieve its even higher ROI goals. The cars from Maranello are still behind Red Bull Racing in Formula 1. But when it comes to profitability, Ferrari is top.

In 2021, the luxury icon among sports car manufacturers delivered a good 25 percent operating return (EBIT). In the current year it should be around 23 percent. Vigna is then aiming for 27 to 30 percent by 2026 – despite the billions invested in the new platform for the electric drive. Incidentally, that would be a new lap record for the multiple Formula 1 world champion.

Power: Ferrari has a strong brand and is one of the most profitable car manufacturers in the world. Use price weakness to get started.

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Image sources: dutourdumonde / Shutterstock.com, Kosarev Alexander / Shutterstock.com