Parasacco Named to Lead Revived Fiat Spain, Portugal

MADRID – Luca Parasacco is named CEO of Fiat Spain and Portugal, taking over a company made stable and profitable in just three years’ time under the leadership of his predecessor, Luca Napolitano.

Sales jumped 30.4% from 2012 to 2014 as the different brands under the Fiat subsidiary’s umbrella – Fiat, Fiat Professional, Lancia, Jeep and Alfa Romeo – registered more than 36,000 units and outperformed the market an average 12%. Registrations have increased 35 months in a row.

Dealers’ profit margin in 2014 was 0.5%, compared with losses averaging 2.4% in the prior year.

“Now the target for 2015 is a 1.5% profitability,” Napolitano tells the daily newspaper El Mundo during the launch of a new sales system for two recent arrivals on the Spanish market, the Fiat 500X and Jeep Renegade CUVs, that allows the customer to configure the desired model and receive a proposed price via tablet, PC or smartphone.

The task inherited by Parasacco is to reach about 47,000 deliveries in 2015, twice the volume Fiat Spain and Portugal achieved when Napolitano arrived in 2012. That would amount to a 5% share of the Spanish market.

Napolitano also was able to slow, if not stop, the revolving door atop the Italian automaker’s Iberian subsidiary; he was its 13^th CEO in 20 years. He also reduced the dealer network 30% to the current 110.

Parasacco joined Fiat in 1997 through Iveco, its commercial-vehicles division, and was responsible for all European, Middle East and Africa markets excepting France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the U.K. until being named to succeed Napolitano.