New boss at Rolls-Royce warns company at last chance saloon

Having taken over from Warren East in January this year, Rolls-Royce’s new CEO, Tufan Erginbilgic has warned all staff at the FTSE-100 firm that it must change the way it operates if it is to have a future.

In a global announcement Erginbilgic stated that: “Every investment we make, we destroy value. We under-perform every key competitor out there,” adding that: “Rolls-Royce has not been performing for a long, long time, it has nothing to do with COVID, let’s be very clear. COVID created a crisis, but the issue in hand has nothing to do with it. Given everything I know talking to investors, this is our last chance.”

The company achieved a revenue of £5.60 billion in the six months ended June 30 2022, up from £5.15 billion a year earlier. Unfortunately, that swung to a hefty pretax loss of £1.75 billion from a profit of £114 million. Rolls-Royce is a flagship UK company and is responsible for producing, among other things, jet engines for aircraft including the Airbus A350 and the Boeing 787 Dreamliner.

However, analysts have frequently viewed the company as being less profitable than its North American rival General Electric in the aerospace sector. One of the problems facing Erginbilgic is that his predecessor had already executed a campaign of restructuring and asset sales, so these options are not exactly available today. Consequently, he has warned staff that they will need to “think differently, act differently, make a difference so this business corrects itself and we don’t have much time”. (£1.00 = US$1.23 at time of publication.)