Last week Martin Winterkorn, the new chief executive of Volkswagen, centralised power at Europe's largest carmaker, making himself head of the largest brand and taking responsibility for research and development.
The move came as part of a big shake-up in VW's structure that leaves it looking as it did under Ferdinand Piëch, its controversial chairman and former chief executive who is seen as the driving force behind the plans. The shake-up led to the resignation of Wolfgang Bernhard as head of the VW brand, a position Mr Winterkorn will take on.
Bernhard's departure strips the carmaker of a restructuring expert who was widely respected for taking a much tougher line on costs at the notoriously unproductive company. The current structure of splitting the carmaker's seven marques between a VW brand group and an Audi one will end.
New posts on the management board will be created for production, sales and R&D with Jochem Heizmann of Audi taking on the former, and an as-yet-to-be-named manager for sales. The aim is to produce synergies through closer co-operation between the brands, particularly VW, Skoda, Seat and Audi.Allies of Winterkorn said that from this year all seven brands would report results separately.
Mr Winterkorn's triple role reflects a trend in the car industry of chief executives taking additional responsibilities. His plans came as VW repeated its rejection of the proposed deal in the truck sector between MAN and Scania, two companies where VW is the largest shareholder.
Peggy Bruzelius, a Scania director and spokeswoman for the board, called the deal dead. But MAN is expected to come back with a sweetened offer before its self-imposed deadline of the end of this month. VW reaffirmed its desire to see a friendly tie-up between the truck makers.
Many analysts believe the new structure at VW and Bernhard's departure mean restructuring at VW will slow as the new management pursues a policy of volume growth through the introduction of new models.
Both Winterkorn and Piëch are engineers obsessed with detail and Stephen Cheetham, analyst at Sanford Bernstein, warned this could revive VW's tradition of over-engineering cars.
But some analysts believe the strength of Porsche, VW's largest investor where Piëch himself is a controlling shareholder, means it will push for cost-cutting and profit improvements at its bigger rival.
(Financial Times)