Volkswagen chief Bernd Pischetsrieder said on Tuesday he may reallocate board responsibilities after a key departure last week and ruled out buying a 45% stake in Swedish truck maker Scania, Reuters reported.
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According to Reuters, the ex-BMW boss who took the helm at VW exactly a year ago, told the Financial Times (FT) in an interview he would start with a “clean sheet of paper” in reshuffling executive responsibilities.
“We will review the total organisation and look at whether it is right or wrong to have regional responsibilities as we have them now and whether it is right or wrong to have one set of responsibilities for each brand,” Pischetsrieder was quoted as saying, Reuters said.
A VW spokesman told Reuters the comments referred to the company’s marketing and sales structure rather than any imminent board changes.
According to Reuters, even before arriving at VW, Pischetsrieder presented a new marketing strategy aimed at establishing a clearer identity for VW’s brands, which include Audi, Skoda, Lamborghini, SEAT and Bentley, but his critics say he has so far failed to stamp his authority on the group in any other noticeable way.
VW’s wide range of brands was acquired under former boss Ferdinand Piech, criticised for his “platform strategy,” which saved production costs by building several models on the same basic framework but diluted the identity of individual marques, Reuters noted.
Pischetsrieder made it one of his goals to cut out the overlap in the group’s brand portfolio, the news agency added.
Reuters noted that VW said last week that sales and marketing director Robert Buechelhofer had left over a dispute about marketing. His relationship with Pischetsrieder had been tense dating back to their time at BMW, and he was said to be one of the executive’s harshest critics within the company, Reuters added.
According to Reuters, VW has not appointed a successor to Buechelhofer, who joined the management board in 1995 and also was responsible for the Asia-Pacific region.
Pischetsrieder also told the FT he had ruled out buying a 45% stake in Swedish truckmaker Scania, put up for sale by Volvo, Reuters reported. VW has been billed as one of the contenders to buy the Volvo stake.
Reuters said that Pischetsrieder reportedly claimed that VW’s strategic stake in Scania, about 18% of share capital and 34% of voting rights, already gives it an opening in the key fleet management business.
“I don’t need to own Scania at all for that. I don’t need to own more than we have today — we will never buy it,” he reportedly said.
According to Reuters, Volvo, the world’s second largest truck maker, has to sell its stake for regulatory reasons by early next year, and potential buyers include MAN AG and the Iveco truck unit of Italy’s Fiat.
Pischetsrieder in the past said that Volkswagen was keeping its options open on whether to sell the Scania stake completely, leave it as is, or buy more, Reuters added.
