When BMW unexpectedly ditched its top two executives last month, it compounded the shock of the announcement by appointing a little-known former academic as the German car maker's new chairman.
The best most writers could say about Joachim Milberg (55), who had been BMW's low-profile production chief until his meteoric promotion, was that he was "a respected former university professor".
Mr Milberg joined BMW in 1993 from Munich's Technical University, where he taught machine tooling and business studies. It was hardly an ideal start for the head of one of the world's most prestigious car makers, with almost 120,000 employees and sales of 63 billion deutschmarks (€32 billion) last year. But then, Mr Milberg is not taking over in ideal circumstances.
Little is known about what happened at the board meeting on February 5th that ended in the dismissal of Bernd Pischetsrieder, BMW's popular chairman, and Wolfgang Reitzle, his high-profile rival and de facto number two. But nobody doubts that Rover, BMW's British subsidiary, was the cause of their downfall.
Mr Pischetsrieder and Mr Reitzle disagreed on what to do about the losses at Rover. The quarrel turned nasty. It became a power struggle that threatened to paralyse decision-making. The board decided the two men should go, and it chose the mild-mannered Mr Milberg to restore a semblance of harmony to the group.
Even if he wished to emerge from obscurity, Mr Milberg would be barred from doing so by a company rule that keeps new executives in public relations purdah for their first 100 days.
So while Mr Milberg has remained silent, German newspapers have speculated about the multimillion deutschmark compensations under negotiation to persuade Mr Pischetsrieder and Mr Reitzle to leave quietly. Last Friday, Ford announced that Mr Reitzle would be joining to run its growing portfolio of prestige brands, including Jaguar and Volvo.
But the new BMW chairman has confounded those who expected him to be an academic. In his first - and so far only - media appearance since his appointment, Mr Milberg came across as an assured speaker in charge of his brief. The audience at the Geneva motor show this month was packed with sceptical business writers, but Mr Milberg was unfazed.
"At least I'm used to addressing big auditoria," the professor said. He delivered a polished, if superficial, overview of the latest developments at BMW - the company would not be the motor industry's next takeover target.
"Things are going much better than is being presented from outside," he said.
Mr Milberg was probably grateful for BMW's rule of silence, as the problems that led to Mr Pischetsrieder's downfall have no easy solution. Some would say Mr Milberg has been handed a poisoned chalice.
For years, BMW's sports saloons and its formidable marketing machine were the envy of its rivals. But BMW's reputation has suffered from growing problems at Rover, its British subsidiary. It was bought for £800 million sterling (€1.19 billion) in 1994, during Mr Pischetsrieder's early days as chairman, and he spent the next five years trying to integrate Rover into the group.
Instead of providing an entry into the mid-range market - without damaging the luxury BMW brand - Rover turned into a quagmire for the Munich company. It consumed management time, cash and careers.
First came the abrupt departure late last year of Walter Hasselkus, the affable BMW board member summoned to sort out Rover in 1996. The quandary ultimately cost Mr Pischetsrieder and Mr Reitzle their jobs. BMW last week revealed a massive rise in Rover's losses to DM1.87 billion last year - well above analysts' estimates. The big jump was largely responsible for depressing BMW's group net profit to DM903 million, compared with DM1.25 billion in 1997. The setback will undoubtedly lead to some tough questions for Mr Milberg when he fleshes out BMW's results on March 30th.
Although there is little hope of restoring Rover to profitability by 2000, it will be Mr Milberg's job to sort things out. His strategy, however, looks like that of his predecessor: spending his way out of trouble.
In Geneva, Mr Milberg confirmed BMW would invest heavily to replace Rover's slow-selling 200 and 400 models with more attractive cars. The disappointing sales of the two vehicles and the strength of sterling lie at the heart of Rover's problems.
In spite of some apparent delays, BMW is expected to announce it will spend about £1.7 billion sterling to rebuild Rover's 104-year-old Longbridge plant in Birmingham, where the 200 and 400 models are made. The German carmaker will receive a substantial amount of investment aid from the British government to do so.
Eventually, the ramshackle Longbridge facilities will be replaced by a leaner, more productive factory that will turn out the successors to the 200 and 400 series and the new Mini. The new models are a big risk for BMW. Investors are concerned about Rover's mounting losses and the sharp decline in its British market share. These in turn have affected BMW's share price. It will be up to Mr Milberg to convince shareholders that BMW's new seven-member board is in control of the situation.
Perhaps Mr Milberg had no choice about following the strategy mapped out by his predecessor. He says BMW's new board has "accelerated and intensified" the integration process. "The basic strategy is the same. You can't change strategy every two weeks," he says.
Modernising Longbridge was the last leg of a plan drawn up by Mr Pischetsrieder to transform Rover from a basket case to a competitive carmaker.
The blueprint started with investment in Land Rover, the group's popular off-road subsidiary, at a time of growing demand for trendy sports utility vehicles. Land Rover's Solihull plant got a complete overhaul, and, last year, it built a record number of vehicles.
BMW money performed the same magic at Cowley, a crumbling factory renamed Rover Oxford. The plant was rebuilt to create a high-tech production base for Rover's new 75 saloon and future off-shoots.
At Gaydon, near Warwick, BMW helped Rover create a product development centre modelled on the German group's own Munich base. Together, the projects and their associated new models have cost DM7 billion, excluding the initial takeover cost, according to Mr Milberg.
This month BMW and Rover will merge their sales and marketing operations - an example of the integration analysts said was overdue. Similar steps are being taken, from purchasing to public relations, to eliminate duplication.
But even these reforms were part of the package pushed through by Mr Pischetsrieder late last year as the depth of Rover's crisis became apparent.
Mr Milberg is widely credited with the successful introduction last year of the latest generation of the 3 Series - BMW's best-selling model. The production launch took place at three plants simultaneously and was praised as the smoothest in the company's history.
Given his wide experience in production engineering - his academic speciality (machine tools) gave him privileged access to all the world's car factories - the new BMW chief probably has ideas of his own about what should be done about Rover. So far, however, he has been reluctant to show them.
