Pischetsrieder will be replaced by Martin Winterkorn according to reports.

[Yperion]

Volkswagen CEO to step down, Audi chief to take place

Volkswagen's Bernd Pischetsrieder will step down as chief executive of Europe's biggest carmaker at the end of the year, to be replaced by the head of its premium car unit Audi, the company said on Tuesday.

"The presidium of the supervisory board of Volkswagen AG and the chairman of the board of management, Dr. Bernd Pischetsrieder, have agreed upon his resignation effective from December 31, 2006," it said in a surprise announcement.

It gave no reason for the move, which comes only six months after the supervisory board unanimously voted to extend Pischetsrieder's contract until April 2012.

Volkswagen said the six-man steering committee of the supervisory board has unanimously proposed appointing Audi's chief executive Martin Winterkorn to replace him starting next year. The full board will address the issue on Nov. 17.

A supervisory board source said officials had agreed not to discuss why Pischetsrieder, 58, was going, but told Reuters VW would offer him a new function within the group.

"We have discussed internally that he will make himself available for special assignments," the source said without being more specific.

Pischetsrieder, former chief executive of German premium carmaker BMW (BMWG.DE: Quote, Profile, Research), had to survive a battle to stay on as head of Volkswagen earlier this year....

More here: http://today.reuters.com/news/artic...icIndustries&storyID=nL07818496&from=business

 

[Giannis]

strange decision...

 

[EnI]

Hm ...

Isn't Winterkorn a Piech's man? What will then happen to Bernhard as VW brand boss? Who will be a new Audi AG CEO? Porsche AG also announced these days they wanted to raise stake in VAG to 29.9%

Questions, questions, questions ...

 

[Yperion]

Martin Winterkorn has been voted best manager in Germany last year, I can't think of anyone better for the job. Only shame Audi will loose him.

 

[Imhotep Evil]

n-tv reports that there are three kingmaker power blocs at Volkswagen:

- The Porsche family (represented by Ferdinand Piëch)
- The government of Lower Saxony (which has a huge proportion [second largest after the Porsche company nowadays, say Bloomberg] of shares in this nominally independent, nominally private sector company)
- The unions (who have power on the supervisory board headed by Piëch).

All of these allegedly wanted to see the back of Pischetsrieder, because he

1) Was keen to cut 20,000 jobs.

2) Did not persistently promote Piëch/Porsche pet projects like the Phaeton.

Mr. Winterkorn from Ingolstadt is reportedly a Piëch man.

Apparently, Pischetsrieder joined BMW Munich (in 1973?) and spent time in South Africa (where Mr. Hasselkuss was based) before coming back.

Pischetsrieder's contract with VAG had only just been extended in the Spring to end in 2012. At the time, Piëch had apparently briefed that Pischetsrieder was the choice only of the [presumably non-Lower Saxon] shareholders. Officially, Piëch was saying that Pischetsrieder's departure now was due to the workers - thereby playing to kingmaker groups 2) and 3). With that long contract, there will be SUV-sized wheelbarrows of cash for Pischetsrieder (was that the reason for VW and him agreeing on such a long contract - because they both knew he was on the way out?), but we will never know how much he will get.

Winterkorn will still have to wield a big axe.

 

[siko]

Great news

I've been wanting VW to get rid of him for a while... it finally happened!

 

[Ultimate Car Guy]

Pischetsreiders departure was and abrupt announcement. For months now, we've heard that the Saxony shareholders and Piech expressing their indiferrence towards his leadership. But why did they extend his contract until 2012? only to do a complete backflip.

Now that Audi Chairman Martin Winterkorn will takeover his post, who will be Audi's new CEO? and development boss? (since Winterkorn held both positions).

Is Winterkorn a caretaker for this position? because he's currently 59, and i'd assume he would retire soon.

How will this affect Wolfgang Bernhard (VW brand CEO)? he was the heir apparent to Pischetsreider. Will they give him extra responsibilities like the boss of Audi?

 

[Ultimate Car Guy]

Proposed management schuffle:

VW AG Chairman: Dr Martin Winterkorn
VW Brand and Audi AG Chairman: Dr Wolfgang Bernhard (as compensation for being passed over the VW AG Chairmanship)
Audi AG Technical Development Head: Dr Ulrich Hackenberg (currently head of concept, body and electronics at Audi) or Michael Dick (Head of Whole Total Vehicle Development at Audi)

Or alternatively,

Audi could get Stefan Krausse (BMW CFO) to be the new Chairman, since Krausse lost the Chairmanship at BMW.

 

[phaeton]

Interesting news I don't whether this is good or bad for VWAG ?????

To be honest I don't know too much about Mr Winterkorn other than his standout job at Audi

 

[cawimmer430]

strange decision...

www.focus.de, a German news and info site, said the reason for this was that they've lost some respect and trust in him because of the way he "treated them". That's the most specific reasons I could find oline at the moment.

Anschließend sprachen sich den Angaben nach allerdings bis auf Niedersachsens Ministerpräsident Christian Wulff (CDU) sämtliche Präsidiumsmitglieder gegen Pischetsrieder aus und begründeten ihre Ablehnung mit einem gestörten Vertrauensverhältnis. Insbesondere die Arbeitnehmervertreter haben den Kreisen zufolge gegen Pischetsrieder argumentiert, weil sie sich von ihm bei den kürzlich abgeschlossenen Sanierungsverhandlungen schlecht behandelt gefühlt hätten.

Yes I know it is in German but it looks cool.

http://www.focus.de/finanzen/aktien/pischetsrieder_nid_38837.html

 

[Wolfgang]

This may be good news for Mercedes. I doubt Wolfgang Bernhard will want to remain at VW. How about him running AMG or Mercedes-Benz again?

VW reformer's future in doubt after CEO resigns
Wed Nov 8, 2006 6:20 AM ET



By Christiaan Hetzner
FRANKFURT, Nov 8 (Reuters) - Surprise news that Volkswagen's <VOWG.DE> chief executive will resign at year's end left investors guessing on Wednesday about what the future holds for top lieutenant and reform driver Wolfgang Bernhard.
Analysts said Bernhard could be a casualty in the fallout from the unexplained departure of CEO Bernd Pischetsrieder, and said they were concerned that VW, Europe's largest carmaker, could lose the focus on cost-cutting he has driven.
Citigroup downgraded the stock to "hold" from "buy", saying both Bernhard and group finance chief Hans Dieter Poetsch -- two top Pischetsrieder allies -- could wind up as collateral damage.
"At worse, the positions of CFO Poetsch, responsible for capital discipline, and VW Brand CEO Bernhard, responsible for driving production savings, could be in jeopardy," it wrote.
VW was not available for comment on the situation.
Chosen by Pischetsrieder to head the VW brand, the 46-year old restructuring expert with the movie-star looks has been at the forefront of VW's campaign to slash costs and jobs at the group's troubled western German operations.
Bernhard is responsible for delivering 7 billion euros ($8.9 billion) in gross earnings improvements at the VW brand by 2008, and has aggressively looked to prune benefits and extend working hours for the roughly 100,000 workers at the six traditional VW plants in western Germany.
His presence has been seen as a guarantee that the far-reaching changes necessary at Volkswagen would not be hijacked by special interests within the company resistant to surrendering VW's historically cosy system of consensus-based decisions, influenced in part through labour's co-management.
Martin Winterkorn, the head of the Audi premium division and protege of powerful VW Chairman Ferdinand Piech, will replace Pischetsrieder, the company said late on Tuesday.
Markets fear that a Bernhard departure would undermine reforms at a company still recovering from cronyism blamed for a series of scandals last year, which included criminal investigations of bribery, fraud and paid sexual favours.
"If he goes, the stock is going to go way down," an automotive analyst said, declining to be named.
German bank HVB said VW's refusal to explain the CEO's sudden resignation raised the question of whether the focus and cost discipline that Pischetsrieder championed would continue.
Focus magazine of Germany reported that Pischetsrieder, whose contract was just extended six months ago until April 2012, resigned after confronting opposition from five of the six members of the supervisory board's key steering committee, led in particular by all three labour representatives.
Its shares swung through a wide 3-euro range and were off 1.4 percent at 80.08 euros by 1105 GMT, the leading decliner in the DJ Stoxx European car sector index <.SXAP>. The stock has been the index's second-best performer this year.

CHASED OUT OF DAIMLER
The market had already speculated whether Bernhard would throw in the towel, frustrated by the highly sensitive politics prevalent at a company where 97 percent of its German workers are organised through the powerful IG Metall trade union and labour representatives make up half of the supervisory board.
Bernhard, a no-nonsense manager with little patience for bureaucracy endemic to former state-owned companies such as Volkswagen, has already run into problems with powerful German works councils in the past.
In April 2004, DaimlerChrysler's <DCXGn.DE> supervisory board blocked Bernhard from taking over as head of the Mercedes Car Group. The move came just days before he was set to assume the post, amid German media reports that labour was out for blood following reported comments that he called former pearl Mercedes a "restructuring case".
"A change of (Volkswagen) management at the highest level at such a sensitive time will raise questions about deeper internal conflict amongst management," Morgan Stanley said in a note.
"Some investors may speculate that this may hasten Dr. Bernhard's departure from VW and possible return to DCX to head the Mercedes car business, or to rescue Chrysler," the bank continued.

© Reuters 2006. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Reuters content, including by caching, framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters. Reuters and the Reuters sphere logo are registered trademarks and trademarks of the Reuters group of companies around the world.

 

[Mr. Mercedes]

Oh this could turn out very well for Mercedes.

Zetsche right now is handling both top jobs over at Daimlerchrysler. He may think the time is right to now hand over control of Mercedes to a long term ally and friend such as Bernhard. With those two at the helm there would be little doubt MB will once again turn into quite the powerhouse.

 

[Ultimate Car Guy]

Now that i think about it, now is the perfect time for Bernhard to CEO to Mercedes- finally. The only reason he was ousted from there in the first place was because of Schrempp! Bernhard knows Mercedes well- he was responsible for S class Production before being boss of AMG- and he should be able to continue Merc's path to recovery.

If Bernhard does go to DCX, what happens to VW and Audi? Winterkorn will have to pick-up where Bernhard left-off, but he'll have to let go soon because he'll retire. And who's going to be the Audi noss?

 

[Imhotep Evil]

This is bad news for VW. hope they won't end up like GM or worse BL.

 

[EnI]

In the end that stupid & over-emotional Piech will kill VAG for good.

 

[Yperion]

Audi's production head Heizmann could be the next CEO

Audi AG management board member responsible for production, Jochen Heizmann, could become the company's new CEO, reported Sueddeutsche Zeitung, citing sources.

Following the announcement that Audi's CEO Martin Winterkorn is to succeed Bernd Pischetsrieder as Volkswagen AG's CEO from Jan 1, 2007, Heizmann is now favourite to become Audi's new CEO, added the report, citing sources.

Heizmann, 54, from Speyer has been Audi's production head since 2001, said Sueddeutsche Zeitung.

Volkswagen announced on Nov 7 that the Presidium of the Supervisory Board, as well as CEO Bernd Pischetsrieder, agreed on Pischetsrieder's resignation effective Dec 31, 2006.

Source:http://www.forbes.com/markets/feeds/afx/2006/11/09/afx3159573.html