VW chairman sparks potential battle over CEO position

A direction dispute is apparently brewing within Vw's best ranks, possibly jeopardizing Martin Winterkorn's place as CEO.
Supervisory board chairman Ferdinand Piech started the argument when he told Der Spiegel that he'd 'distanced' himself from Winterkorn. Piech failed to supply any circumstance, but the opinion continues to be broadly interpreted as an indication that he's lost trust in the CEO. Under Winterkorn's view, the German auto-maker has fought to invigorate revenue in certain markets. Sales of Volkswagen-badged vehicles were especially slow, falling by 10 per cent in 2014 and down by nine % for the initial three months of 2015. Audi has adopted the business upswing, with revenue up by 13% in 2014 and growing by 14 percent up to now in 2015.Regarded as a strong person in the supervisory board, Piech served as VW Team CEO for nine years before retiring in the management board in 2002. He's credited with directing a turn around work that saved the firm from insolvency. Piech's place is not openly backed by other members of the board, a number of which have rather expressed support for Winterkorn. The Chief Executive has also apparently received support from union leaders, which maintain half the voting places on the board, as well as the organization 's home state-of Lower Saxony, which retains one-fifth of the voting-rights as a stockholder, in accordance with a Reuters followup report."The remark from Dr Piech signifies his private view which has in material and factually not been organized with all the household," said fellow board member Wolfgang Porsche, who's also chairperson of the Porsche holding company that owns a majority stake in Volkswagen's common stock. The difference of opinion will be settled next yr, when Winterkorn's deal is up for renewal.

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13.04.2015
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