Volkswagen Annual General Meeting: VW Board meets shareholders – “it was not all wrong”

05/03/2018

Volkswagen general meeting VW board meets shareholders – “it was not all wrong”

AFP

New VW CEO Herbert Diess (right), chairman of the supervisory board Hans Dieter Pötsch: critical questions from shareholders

Brief and concise represent the situation, a few friendly demands, quick relief for the Board and Supervisory Board – exactly as one runs Volkswagen AGM usually not off. There are a number of reasons for this. Because the largest car company in the world drives the exhaust gas affair with millions of manipulated diesel engines faster and faster, the money bubbles, and the paragraph breaks all records.

Therefore, there should hardly be an ostravism for top management and controllers like two years ago at the (today’s) shareholder meeting in Berlin. Also anger and bitterness of the shareholders should be much less tangible. NordLB analyst Frank Schwope expects a rather peaceful Annual General Meeting.

“I do not think there’s a lot of trouble,” he estimates. Even industry expert Stefan Bratzel believes that the mood is likely to be comparatively good – the results eventually pointed in the right direction: “It was not all wrong in recent years.”

However, what might possibly be piercing demands, is the somewhat surprising change in the top management, the Volkswagen had announced in mid-April. Herbert Diess, who until then was solely responsible for the core brand with the VW logo, succeeds Matthias Müller – and wants to make the group of companies break new ground in the future. Does this mean that the supervisory board and the Volkswagen owners around the Porsche and Piëch families actually regard the former CEO as a kind of “lame duck”, as industry expert Ferdinand Dudenhöffer speculates?

Schwope waves. Müller had the job at Volkswagen – which he took on as successor to Martin Winterkorn in September 2015, when this was swept by “diesel gate” from office – from the beginning “not filled with euphoria”. But he did most of the cleanup after the scandal.

In addition, Müller prescribed the autogiant a new culture. But these still have to be properly established in the company. “You have to regain confidence,” stresses Bratzel. But that is only possible if there is a real cultural change.

This has to set a new course

Bratzel also expects that this will say “a bit far”, how he sets the course and in which direction he wants to go further. “What does he do for the transformation of the industry at Volkswagen Show stock market chart The expert asks: “What is needed is a long-term vision for the next five to six years – especially against the background of the profound change in the industry, which has to cope with the great trend towards e-mobility and ever-increasing networking.

Also Dudenhöffer hopes to see how the new CEO VW wants to set up. According to dpa information, it is unlikely to be known who will be the new manager of the day-to-day business of the VW brand – the “Chief Operating Officer”, who will be supported by Diess. If the post is filled externally, then you might still be looking, estimates Dudenhöffer.

Business is good, but worries remain

One thing is clear: even if the business is running again, there are still some dark clouds on the horizon. There are, for example, the investor lawsuits – investors accuse VW of having informed in September 2015 too late about the exhaust gas manipulation.

After the tampering, the VW shares had crashed and had lost almost half of their value in the meantime. Also against former and current managers is determined. In addition, thousands of car owners complain against the manufacturer or their car dealer – in the hope of compensation or the return of the cars with the fraud software.

On the credit side should be: The current business is running smoothly, even if the diesel share of the sold cars in Germany has fallen dramatically for some time. This should make it much harder in the future to meet the increasingly stringent EU requirements for the emission of the climate gas CO2.

But the payment of the board also remains an excitement. The remuneration of the members of the Executive Board rose to around EUR 50.3 million in 2017 – after EUR 39.5 million in the previous year. A topic to which Chancellor Angela Mekel (CDU) commented “in astonishment”. In addition, Müller recently caused discontent with GDR comparisons in salary and regulatory issues. You see: VW still has some excitement in store.

For critical inquiries should make sure the sudden change on the post of CEO: Two and a half weeks ago took over Herbert Diess, until then boss of the core brand VW, surprisingly by Matthias Müller CEO of the entire group ,

Shareholders should be informed by the Supervisory Board about the Circumstances and reasons for the replacement demand – and want to know from the VW boards, as the course of Diess from its predecessor. Read more about Diess’ way for the Volkswagen Group in the current issue of the manager magazine,

Tailwind through good numbers

Whether the Volkswagen Group such a profound change ever hinbekommt – as likely to hook on Thursday, several shareholders. Tail wind provides this but the last good performance of the group: In the first quarter of the year, Volkswagen Group sales climbed by 3.6 percent to 58.2 billion euros thanks to a record for deliveries, but the car giant at 3.3 billion euros earned a little less than a year ago at around 3, 4 billion euros.

The Volkswagen core brand, the problem child for a long time, increased operationally slightly, and corporate brands such as Audi and Skoda performed well. Overall, Volkswagen boosted the number of deliveries to customers by 7.4 percent to nearly 2.7 million vehicles. And the Group has also recently confirmed the outlook for the current year: According to this, sales should increase by up to five percent in 2018, and the operating return – that is, the share of operating income – should be between 6.5 and 7.5 percent – In the first quarter, it was 7.2 percent.

This can prove to its shareholders a quite successful course of the past months. How far the beautiful figures but helps with hard shareholder criticism in dealing with the diesel scandal, must still show on Thursday.

la / dpa / Reuters

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