Fiat Group CEO Sergio Marchionne (above at the Geneva Motor Show last week) has said that he will "fight like hell" to keep the Italian carmaker in profit this year and was critical of the industry executives who were forecasting losses for the year already.

Fiat Group CEO Sergio Marchionne has said that he will "fight like hell" to keep the Italian carmaker in profit this year and was critical of the industry executives who were forecasting losses at their own companies for the year already.

"Car markets have gone from bad to horrible so far this year, but I will fight like hell to keep Fiat Group Automobiles profitable in 2009," Marchionne told Automotive News Europe in an interview at the 79th Geneva Motor Show last week which was published yesterday on the newspaper's website. "I refuse to accept even the idea that our auto operations will lose money and I am reviewing all spending budgets on a daily basis," he added.

Last year Fiat Group Automobiles (FGA) posted a trading profit of 691 million euro (2.6 pct of revenues which were 26.9 billion); this was down slightly from 2007's 803 million trading profit (then 3 percent of revenues). For this year Marchionne forecasted an "in excess of 1 billion euro" trading profit at the end of January which he hasn't revised downwards yet, as well as a Group net profit that will be in excess of 300 million euro.  

In recent months the global car industry has seen an unprecedented slowdown in new vehicle sales as consumers shun the showrooms, preferring to wait instead until the broader financial picture becomes clearer. Incentives to kick start car buying from European governments are starting to have an effect in Germany, France and Italy, as well as outside Europe, particularly in Brazil where Fiat has a large exposure to the market. "Running an automaker these days is like driving in dense fog," Marchionne told ANE. "You have just 100 meters of visibility so you must continuously adapt to what you suddenly face."

He was also critical of other auto industry executives who were busy predicting losses for this year. "The first duty of a leader is to keep his company in the black," said Marchionne who last week went to Washington to be questioned by the US Treasury Department's auto task force as he presses the case for the proposed alliance with struggling US carmaker Chrysler LLC. "To accept and announce at the beginning of the year that you will lose money is the worst sign of leadership you could give to your troops."