Today (Tuesday) is Volkswagen chief executive Ferdinand Piëch ‘s last day at work as he hands over to ex-BMW chairman Bernd Pischetsrieder.
Go deeper with GlobalData
Discover B2B Marketing That Performs
Combine business intelligence and editorial excellence to reach engaged professionals across 36 leading media platforms.
Piëch won’t be leaving VW for good, though, because the straight-talker, hitting Germany’s mandatory retirement age of 65 this week, remains chairman emeritus of Europe’s largest car maker.
Piëch is leaving at the pinnacle of his career but hands the day-to-day running of VW to Pischetsrieder with the global car industry in crisis.
Piëch recently announced an 18.6 percent rise in profits to 4.4 billion euros ($US3.9 billion) for 2001, a stark contrast to the $1.1 billion annual loss when he took over nine years ago.
Piëch also leaves having achieved a long-held dream: the new super-luxury Phaeton model first revealed at the Detroit Motor Show in January and currently on the international show circuit prior to its launch at Paris in September.
While acknowledging the numerous cars launched on Piëch’s watch, and the work done on raising the profile of VAG’s various brands, particularly Skoda, critics say all is not all is not quite well in Wolfsburg.
Earnings have started to fall in line with the rest of the industry and first quarter vehicle shipments fell 6.6 percent with some analysts predicting an ultimate downturn of over 10 percent.
Piëch was also criticised for ‘overbranding’ VAG with too many nameplates and Pischetsrieder will have to deal with the company marques that steal sales from each other and deal with the fact that most don’t make sufficient profit.
He’ll also need to deal with poor returns on capital – VW’s 2.6 percent is shaded by Peugeot Citroen, for example, which gets nine percent.
