Dometic’s chief executive officer is readying a new strategic direction and will unveil a cost-savings package for the Swedish maker of cooling and ventilation products for vehicles and boats.
This story by Niclas Rolander and Niklas Magnusson originally appeared in Bloomberg.
With the measures, which include shifting manufacturing and seeking out new customers groups, Juan Vargues is trying to get investors to look beyond a recent slump in the market for RVs that has helped send Dometic’s shares down some 30 percent so far this year.
The CEO, who took the helm of the company at the end of last year after previously heading lockmaker Assa Abloy’s Entrance Systems division, has already laid the groundwork for a new strategy. He briefed 155 managers on the key points at a meeting in Berlin a month ago, and will include details about structural measures in the fourth-quarter report in February.
“We need to work with internal efficiency to be able to invest for the future,” Vargues said in an interview in Stockholm.
One part of the plan is to reduce the number of factories where Dometic makes everything from portable coolboxes to toilets and awnings for recreational vehicles, or RVs. Those plans have become even more urgent for Dometic, which has 28 plants worldwide, after the U.S. introduction of tariffs on a range of goods. Dometic now plans to move some production from China to a new factory in Mexico as soon as March.
