Continental and its new owner, the Schaeffler group, have agreed on new cooperation including dividing the company into separate tyre and rubber groups in the north of Germany and autoparts groups in the south.
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“It is the joint ambition of both Continental and Schaeffler, to create a second global champion [after Bosch] in the automotive supplier business, with a home base in Germany,” a statement said.
Creation of an independent rubber group will be overseen by the current chairman of the supervisory board, Hubertus von Grünberg.
The Schaeffler Group will also gain four supervisory board seats.
Schaeffler purchased Hanover-based Continental in January in a deal worth about EUR8bn.
Alan Hippe, Continental’s chief financial officer, will leave the company for Duesseldorf-based steel maker ThyssenKrupp, where he will lead controlling, accounting and financial reports from April, Reuters reported.
“The news about the departure of key personnel like CFO (Alan) Hippe is not a good one, as he has been one of the orchestrators of Conti’s current, very promising technological setup,” Kepler Capital Markets wrote in a note cited by the news agency.
Business daily Handelsblatt reported at the weekend that Continental and majority stakeholder Schaeffler would get EUR1bn in German state aid.
“The rumour about state aid for both companies does not come as a surprise,” Kepler said.
Both companies reportedly declined to comment on the state aid rumour.
