, Columnist
French Cars Get a Paint Job
Carmaker has managed to lift margins by slashing costs
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They said this day would never arrive. PSA Peugeot Citroen's 5 percent recurring operating margin in 2015 is almost as improbable as the French praising British cuisine.
The carmaker lost more than 8 billion euros ($8.8 billion) between 2012 and 2014, according to Bloomberg data, was almost given up for dead and had to be bailed out by France's government. Yet it's delivered a level of profitability that's dazzling by the modest standards of Europe's mass-market carmakers.