Rolls-Royce CEO's bold revamp pays off

The luxury car maker's shares surged 17% to record levels, as its 2024 results surpassed street expectations

- Bloomberg

In his two years as chief executive officer of Rolls-Royce Holdings Plc, Tufan Erginbilgic has turned the company he once derided as a "burning platform" into a case study for reviving a moribund industrial icon. The former oil-company executive slashed jobs, sold off underperforming assets and pulled back on efforts with questionable profit potential.

The result is a nearly eightfold rise in shares of the aerospace engine supplier, the biggest gain by far among members of the FTSE 100 Index of blue-chip UK companies.

There's more to come, the CEO said Thursday. "We have made good progress but we are not done yet," Erginbilgic, 65, told reporters on a call after raising its profit outlook, reinstating a dividend and launching a £1 billion ($1.27 billion) stock buyback. "We are taking Rolls-Royce to a place it has never been before."