Editorial: Li Shufu, Dirk Notheis and their foray

04/19/2018

Editorial Li Shufu, Dirk Notheis and their foray

David Maupile

Steffen Klusmann, editor-in-chief of the manager magazin

Dirk Notheis, ex-Germany boss of Morgan Stanley, was considered as burned, because he had served too much the stereotype of the greedy investment banker with the sales of the energy supplier EnBW to the country Baden-Wuerttemberg. Now he has returned, with a spectacular foray. The transaction artist co-ordinated the assault-like entry for Chinese car billionaire Li Shufu (Geely, Volvo) Daimler, The deal has triggered various eruptions, as my colleague Thomas Werres found out. And that should only be the beginning. Because Li Shufu knows how to enforce his interests very convincingly.

We anticipated Daimler’s metamorphosis on our cover, of course, the intellectual property rights are for Dirk Notheis, from page 24 onwards.Thomas Buberl tells frankly how he managed to rise as a German in the mid 40s in the Olympus of a French institution. Only one thing is kept away by the boss of the insurance giant Axa to my colleague Dietmar Palan and me when we meet him at 6:50 for breakfast: the billionaire takeover of a US competitor, which he will announce two days later. He also says nothing to the investors he still sees after the croissants with us. In the financial markets, the acquisition triggers a moderate quake. The portrait of the intrepid Wunderknaben, who dares to believe things that archrival and Allianz CEO Oliver Bäte has always shied away from, can be found starting on page 44.

In the middle of March, when we were planning a big story about Herbert Diess, at that time brand president VW, was the working line: “The true boss”. CEO Matthias Müller, according to the insight of my colleague Michael Freitag, had so overcome with the owners clan that his weeks seemed to be counted. Three days before the editorial deadline, everything went really fast. Müller was fired, and the true boss was officially named boss. With the hard renovator Diess at the top moves in Wolfsburg again breeding and order, the man is a second winter grain. Whether that can go well and why of all his former enemies from the works council Diess wanted as a new leader, from page 30.

My colleague Christoph Neßhöver has in France studied and worked for several years in Paris as a correspondent. He barely recognized Paris during his research. Emmanuel Macron has simply blown away the muff of decades. Out of the Élysée Palace, with its courtly ambience, Macron’s youth gang makes a start-up camp, the old oil ham on the walls seem like the slanted backdrop of a hobbit movie. In the past, you always had to talk through several phone locks in order to get to important people, you just write them today on LinkedIn. And get an answer within hours. See how Paris becomes a pacesetter in Europe from page 76.

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