I was on TM when Charles exited the building and a lot of the sentiment was doom. Steve did a good job in an increasingly harsh regulatory climate. That's not meant as a slight on Charles. The cars did improve and the market approach definitely improved to bring in fresh new customers. The next 5-10 years will be a tighter economic period which will cast a different shadow to the easy money low APR finance. I know VC money out there has changed it's mood significantly.
As mentioned most of the people on the board keep their cars way longer than average so as a manufacturer keeping the staff busy they need to expand the pool of customers to keep the factory working. I think the period Steve was at the helm will show well on the history books.
Also lets not forget that Morgan is a small team and still quite heavily staff motivation dependant. It is the whole team that has got behind the business, I can see a lot of Steve's energy in that so credit to them all.
I wonder what he will do next. I would imagine the variety and urgency of the role will have spun him up to quite a pressure. There are very few jobs out there that will get his pulse racing to quite the same level? Mind you I hear there is one going at Aston Martin at the moment - not so far away, nice company car to commute in?
I know when I left a very fast moving US startup after 6 years it took me some time to unwind. That's when we took the Coupe and spent a couple of months rumbling around Europe. I can recommend some nice hotels if he wants to try it!
It's not unusual to see the boss go after a change like this. In some cases it is healthy as the new owner is able to get on with it. It is unreasonable to say II are only interested in cash stripping and flipping, until proven otherwise. The bigger scare is if we see the other leadership walk. That means trouble at mill.
I would expect (please correct me if you know otherwise) that the Super3 and CX were done during Steve's time so II get to see the benefits of the teams work. How would I judge the potential future, I watch the fundamentals.
Do they have plans, are they sharing them publicly to show commitment.
Are they placing long term people to take it the next 20 years (worry)
How many years out are they preparing for, with detail.
What is their planned investment moving forwards, turmoil in the car space needs preparation. BEV, Safety etc.
The rest can lead to speculation. This is definitely becoming a bigger inflection point for Morgan. If they carry it through then it could be great, if they blink it could be a strangle point.
Sorry - that got too long.
