MILAN — Ferrari has postponed by one year its financial targets initially set for 2022 due to the coronavirus pandemic, despite a record order book at the end of the last quarter.
“We expect the prudent steps we took in 2020 and are continuing in 2021 to adjust our expenditure in response to the COVID-19 emergency will postpone by one year the achievement of our year-end 2022 guidance,” Chairman John Elkann said in a statement on Tuesday when presenting the company’s first-quarter results.
The company delayed plans to earn at least 1.8 billion euros ($2.2 billion) before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization by 2022. It said it now plans to reach that threshold a year later because of effects of the pandemic.
Adjusted Ebitda rose to 376 million euros in the first quarter, Ferrari said. Shipments in the period were 2,771 units, up slightly from a year ago.
Ferrari already eased its target in September 2018, when Louis Camilleri was settling in as the successor to long-time leader Sergio Marchionne. Elkann has been CEO on an interim basis since Camilleri, 66, abruptly resigned in December.
Elkann, the Agnelli family scion and head of holding company Exor, said last month that Ferrari was making good progress in its search for a permanent CEO who will have the “technological capabilities” to lead the lead the company forward.
The next CEO of Ferrari will inherit a company that has been reluctant to abandon the internal combustion engine. A month before Camilleri resigned for unspecified personal reasons, he told analysts he didn’t see Ferrari ever shifting to 100 percent EVs and ruled out the company moving to 50 percent electric in his lifetime.
Elkann said during last month’s annual general meeting that Ferrari will unveil its first full-electric model in 2025.
Reuters and Bloomberg contributed to this report