Volkswagen has denied that the chairman of its supervisory board, Ferdinand Piech, wanted to oust Wendelin Wiedeking as chief executive of Porsche – the sports car maker is also VW’s biggest shareholder.
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Piech is a grandson of Porsche’s founder, whose descendants still control the car company while Porsche holds about 31% of voting rights at Volkswagen, Europe’s biggest carmaker, Reuters said.
According to the news agency, German magazine Der Spiegel reported that Piech – a dominant figure in the German auto industry for decades – believes that Wiedeking has become too powerful and autonomous.
Der Spiegel reportedly said that Piech still clung to the ambition of hiring Wolfgang Reitzle, currently chief executive of German industrial gases producer Linde, but a senior executive at BMW and Ford [he once headed Ford’s Premier Automotive Group, which at the time comprised Jaguar, Land Rover, Aston Martin, Volvo and Lincoln – ed.]
“The report about a supposed contact between Piech and Reitzle with regard to the replacement of Wiedeking is nonsense and lacks any foundation,” a Volkswagen spokesman told Reuters, adding: ” Piech has had no contact with Reitzle for years, and has none currently.”
The news agency noted that arguments about joint workers’ representation have soured relations between Volkswagen and Porsche recently, and added that the spokesman had said Piech was confident this could be resolved.
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