Scania has denied reports that its chairman, Leif Östling, is leaving the company.
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A spokesman told German newspaper Handelsblatt Östling’s contract runs until March 2009 and that the truck maker would not make any further comment.
Germany’s WirtschaftsWoche magazine had reported earlier that Östling would stand down at the Scania annual general meeting on 5 May.
The background to the report is Östling’s fight to resist a takeover or an alliance with Volkswagen and MAN, the magazine said.
Scania’s spokesman said there had been unfounded rumours that Östling was about to leave the company for around a year.
Financial Times Deutschland reported that Scania’s second largest shareholder, Investor AB, would encourage Östling to stay on. He will probably last out his contract until March 2009, the newspaper said.
Investor would not, however, have any objections to a MAN representative on its board, according to FT Deutschland. MAN controls around 15.6% of Scania voting rights, and is therefore the third largest Scania shareholder, after Volkswagen and the Wallenberg family, which owns Investor AB. There was speculation yesterday (21 January) that MAN may have increased its share of voting rights to around 17% in recent weeks.
