Oliver Blume (57) is supposed to be CEO of the sports car manufacturer Porsche be replaced. The executive committee of the supervisory board has instructed the chairman of the supervisory board to hold discussions with him about an amicable early departure from the board, as the company announced in Stuttgart. A possible time was not mentioned. Blume will remain CEO of the parent company Volkswagen, it continued.
According to the company, former McLaren boss Michael Leiters is available as a possible successor. Negotiations would begin with him.
Leiters, who has a doctorate in engineering, was head of the British luxury car manufacturer McLaren for almost three years until April. He began his career at Porsche 25 years ago, where he was responsible, among other things, for the successful Cayenne SUV model until the end of 2012. He then went to Ferrari as head of technology. According to previous media reports, VW strategy chief Stefan Weckbach and Bentley boss Frank-Steffen Walliser, also former Porsche managers, were among the candidates.
Criticism of Blume’s dual role
This ends Blume’s much-criticized dual role at the helm of the two car manufacturers. Blume has been leading Porsche for ten years and has also been at the helm of the parent company Volkswagen since summer 2022. At that time he dissolved shortly before the Porsche IPO Herbert Diess (66) as boss of the parent company. Support for the constellation came from the billionaire families Porsche and Piëch, who control the majority of voting rights in the VW Group.
However, the dual role has long been criticized by investors and analysts. On the one hand, because of the excessive demands on time, and on the other hand, the dual function of the parent company and the subsidiary entails conflicts of interest. Blume had defended the construct and explained that he could manage the group better with the know-how from the sports car manufacturer’s day-to-day operations.
It was only in September that Volkswagen works council boss Daniela Cavallo (50) called for an end to this structure. “The CEO cannot be a part-time boss in Wolfsburg and spend the rest of the time at Porsche,” she said. Recently there have been increasing indications in media reports and from insiders that Porsche is looking for a successor to Blume.
Blume had always emphasized that his dual role was “not designed to last forever”.
Shareholder representatives were also very critical of Blume’s dual role. Not only because of the workload, but also because of possible conflicts of interest. They repeatedly ask the manager to decide whether to run a corporation. For example, Hendrik Schmidt from the fund provider DWS criticized the fact that Porsche and Volkswagen are the only listed companies in Germany were those who afforded a “part-time CEO”.
Blume’s balance sheet
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Impressive results: Porsche’s profits had more than doubled during Oliver Blume’s term in office
Photo: Michael Kappeler / dpa
Blume took over Porsche in top condition. 2015 was the most successful financial year in the company’s history up to this point. At his first annual press conference, the manager spoke of an “extraordinary result even by Porsche standards”. That was already a foretaste of everything that was to come afterwards.
For years, things in Zuffenhausen were almost exclusively positive – with sales figures, turnover and profits. When Blume took office, Porsche sold around 225,000 cars a year. In 2023, the year with the highest sales so far, there were a good 320,000 sports and off-road vehicles. Profit after taxes has more than doubled during his time in office.
Stock market launch as a triumph
One of Blume’s greatest successes: the IPO in September 2022. After years of speculation and months of examination, Volkswagen raised almost 9.4 billion euros with the IPO. This made it the largest initial issue in Germany since Telekom in 1996. And that despite the fact that the economic conditions were weakened by the consequences of Corona and the Ukrainewere anything but rosy.
The paper with the abbreviation “P911” – named after the iconic 911 sports car – then began to soar. In December 2022, the company was promoted to the leading index Dax. That made Porsche “happy and proud,” Blume said at the time. In the meantime, Porsche was also worth more on the stock market than its parent company, VW. The share reached its high in spring 2022 at almost 120 euros – after an issue price of 82.50 euros.
Sharp drop in profits on the home stretch
Despite the good run, problems piled up, particularly in the home stretch of the Blume era, which lasted almost ten years. The sales figures left a lot to be desired – especially in… China and the USA things went badly. And the profit also plummeted recently. The consolidated profit from January to June was 718 million euros – 71 percent less than a year earlier.
The once successful sports car manufacturer has become a company in crisis mode. This didn’t go unnoticed on the stock market either: the value of the paper has more than halved since its peak value. Most recently the value fluctuated around 41 euros. At the beginning of September, Porsche was also kicked out of the Dax.
In a letter to the workforce in the summer, Blume outlined several reasons for the misery: In China, the market segment for expensive luxury products had literally collapsed in a short period of time. In the USA, the increased tariffs and, in the long term, especially the current price development of the dollar put pressure on Porsche business. Problems for which his successor must find solutions.
From electric cars back to combustion engines
In addition, the transition to electric cars is not working: no other brand in the VW Group had set itself a similarly ambitious goal. More than 80 percent of all new Porsche cars should be fully electric by 2030. There isn’t much left of it. In the first half of the year, the proportion of fully electric cars was 23.5 percent. E-mobility is developing significantly more slowly in many markets than “we and many experts expected years ago,” said Blume.
That’s why the Zuffenhausen-based company has changed course – now they want to develop more vehicles with combustion engines and plug-in hybrids again. There’s also little left of management’s once-big battery plans. The battery subsidiary Cellforce will only conduct research and development in the future, and up to 200 jobs will be lost there. Porsche expects additional costs in the billions for the pivot.
More on the topic
The car manufacturer therefore has to take the red pencil – and its structures shrink. By 2029, around 1,900 jobs are to be cut in a socially acceptable manner in the Stuttgart region. Another savings program is to be put together in the autumn. This is currently being negotiated with the works council.