Marelli has set an ambitious goal: the 3-year-old Italian-Japanese company wants to one of the world’s five largest automotive suppliers based on revenue. Marelli, which has a combined 170 production facilities and R&D centers worldwide, ranks No. 18 on Automotive News Europe’s list of the top 100 global suppliers, with sales to automakers of $11.8 billion in 2020. Based on that list, the automotive lighting and sensing technologies supplier would need to boost its sales 170 percent to pass No. 5 Aisin’s $31.9 billion in sales. Marelli, which was formed in 2019 after Fiat Chrysler Automobiles sold its parts unit, Magneti Marelli, to Japan's Calsonic Kansei in a $6.5 billion deal, is fully owned by the U.S. private equity giant KKR. Marelli Executive Chairman Dinesh Paliwal outlined how the company will reach its target and explained why it appointed a new CEO to get there in an interview with ANE Associate Published and Editor Luca Ciferri.
When KKR bought Magneti Marelli in 2019 and merged it with Calsonic Kansei, which it purchased in 2017, the plan was to take the new company, Marelli, public or divest it by 2024. How did the pandemic affect this plan?
The pandemic clearly affected the timing, but not the ultimate goal, which will happen when the time is right. It will just take place one to three years later. There is no rush. First, we want to grow Marelli into a top five Tier 1 supplier. We are not there today. We had total revenue of about $14 billion pre-COVID. We shrunk a little bit during COVID, but revenue will grow again with an emphasis on innovation and technology.