Fiat shareholders on Monday approved the balance sheet for 2007, a record year for which Chairman Luca Cordero di Montezemolo said CEO Sergio Marchionne deserved full credit.
''Fiat today is a healthy, strong group which is in full expansion and looks towards the future with confidence. 2007 was a crucial year, a year of records,'' Montezemolo said in presenting the balance sheet to shareholders.
Fiat in 2007 posted a trading profit of 3.2 billion euros, the highest ever.
''And I want to give full credit for the results achieved to Sergio Marchionne, who put together a tight and determined team and led it swiftly through a phase of profound transformation,'' the Fiat chairman told stockholders.
In his introduction, Montezemolo recalled that ''since 2004 the Fiat group has, through extreme determination, achieved all the goals it set for itself and, in many cases, even surpassed these targets''.
In his report to shareholders, Marchionne confirmed Fiat's targets for 2008 of a net turnover of over 60 billon euros, a trading profit of between 3.4 to 3.6 billion euros, net profit in the neighborhood of 2.4-2.6 billion euros and the leveling of the group's indebtedness with a net cash surplus of at least 1.5 billion euros.
The first quarter of the current year, he added, appears to be in line with expectations and the group is in a position to buffer any continued drop in consumer demand brought on by the current crisis on financial markets.
Fiat's automobile division, Marchionne said, aims to expand its market share in Italy and Europe and to maintain top position in Brazil.
In order to achieve this, the CEO confirmed that Fiat Group Automobiles this year would introduce several new models including the revamped Lancia Delta, the Alfa Mi.To. and the 500 Abarth.
The new Fiat 500, which made its debut in 2007, ''was most likely our greatest commercial success in recent years. It has given the Fiat marque a totally new image and we have boosted our sales target much higher than originally forecast,'' Marchionne told shareholders.
In regard to the possible spin off of Fiat Group Automobiles, Marchionne told shareholders that ''we have not taken any steps towards an eventual spin off of our automobile division. At present this is only a hypothetical possibility''.
Aside from approving the 2007 balance sheet, Fiat shareholders gave their green light to a dividend of 40 euro cents per common and preferred shares and 50 cents for savings stocks.
A buy-back operation of Fiat shares was also authorised along with a stock option plan for company management presented by Marchionne.
In other business, the assembly ratified the appointment of Rene' Carron to the Fiat board of directors, who replaced Hermann Josef Lambert last July 24.
