Fiat Chrysler named its Jeep division boss Mike Manley on Saturday to take over immediately from Marchionne, who had been due to step down next April ZURICH: Fiat Chrysler Chief Executive Sergio Marchionne was being treated in a Zurich hospital on Sunday with a serious illness after suffering complications following shoulder surgery. A Fiat Chrysler spokesman confirmed Marchionne was in Zurich’s University Hospital, one of the country’s largest medical centers. The spokesman did not give the 66-year-old Italian-Canadian executive’s condition and did not reveal in which of the hospital’s 43 divisions he was being treated. Fiat Chrysler named its Jeep division boss Mike Manley on Saturday to take over immediately from Marchionne, who had been due to step down next April. SGS, the Swiss logistics services company, also announced on Sunday that it had named a new acting chairman to take over for Marchionne, since his illness prevented him from fulfilling the role’s obligations. SGS said in a statement it was “deeply saddened” by the news, as did Lausanne, Switzerland-based Philip Morris International, where Marchionne is also on the board. Marchionne was credited with rescuing Fiat and Chrysler from bankruptcy after taking the Italian carmaker’s wheel in 2004. Ferrari named FCA Chairman and Agnelli family scion John Elkann as new chairman, while board member Louis Camilleri has been named chief executive. Meanwhile, Italian media and politicians Sunday saluted Marchionne. “Marchionne, the end of an era,” was Corriere della Serra’s headline over the weekend. “This is terrible news,” said Marco Bentivoglio, general secretary of the CISL metalworkers’ union. “We have not seen eye-to-eye on certain things... but together we challenged little lazy Italy which prefers to close plants rather than roll up its sleeves.” In his 14 years at the helm, Marchionne revamped Fiat, Italy’s premier private enterprise, from top to bottom, turning it into a sector giant, merging it in 2009 with US automaker Chrysler, then hiving off its industrial vehicles to create CNH Industrial in 2011 before a successful spinoff of luxury brand Ferrari in January 2016. “Marchionne has been a great protagonist of economic life for the past 15 years... he has succeeded in giving Fiat a future when that seemed impossible. He created jobs, not unemployment. I take my hat off to him,” Matteo Renzi said. Marchionne was close to Renzi for some years before keeping his distance later, though he did not go as far as taking up a suggestion by another former premier, media magnate Silvio Berlusconi, to head up a conservative coalition in the March legislative elections.