AFP
At today’s Annual General Meeting, Dieter Zetsche will hand over the chairmanship of the Board to Sweden’s Ola Källenius
The departing Daimler CEO Dieter Zetsche gives before the Daimler Annual General Meeting his successor Ola Källenius an urgent advice on the way: save, save, save. Should Zetsche return in two years as a supervisory board chief, he should also measure Källenius.
The still reigning Daimler CEO Dieter Zetsche has given his designated successor again increased austerity on the way. “Everything is under scrutiny: fixed and variable costs, material and personnel costs, investment projects, depth of added value and product range,” said Zetsche on Wednesday at the Annual General Meeting in Berlin. They are to award a costly corporate transformation into a holding company and three legally independent joint-stock companies. The one-time costs for the corporate restructuring Zetsche sees 700 million euros.
The entire company would have to cut costs and increase efficiency. It also serves to make the cost of new technologies in cars affordable for customers, Zetsche continued. “We can not and will not be satisfied with the current profitability level.” Details left the outgoing top manager open. At the end of the shareholder meeting he wants to free the post for Källenius after more than 13 years the austerity program then further elaborate,
Last year was Daimler Profit slipped by more than a quarter despite an increase in sales. Also the start of the new year had turned out modest, said Zetsche. Waning sales, diesel recalls, the trade dispute between China and the United States and problems with the conversion to the new exhaust gas test standard WLTP had recently weighed heavily on Daimler. A strong finish remains the 66-year-old, who in Short in the Tui supervisory board should be appointed, thus denied.
In the background, Källenius already seems to be working on a savings program. The group wants to cut costs, especially in the administration. The expenditure in the central areas of the car manufacturer is to sink by 20 per cent, had previously the “Handelsblatt” reported. It is about several billion euros in efficiency potential. Ola Källenius has been working for months on “countermeasures” to save the margin targets. In summer, the austerity package should be.
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Källenius, who has been with the company for more than 25 years, is following in his footsteps. Zetsche was an exceptional manager, said supervisory board chief Manfred Bischoff. “He has successfully brought Daimler back through difficult terrain to the top.” In 2016, for example, Mercedes-Benz recaptured the crown of the world’s largest premium car manufacturer from rival BMW.
The native Swede wants and must do after Zetsche now the feat of leading the traditional car and truck makers in the age of electric drive and mobility services, without profit and employment suffer greatly. And that while the key sales markets are cooling off.
The turn to electromobility must Daimler Show stock market chart Källenius recently wrote himself in the exercise book. “We do not want to watch how this happens, but we want to be one of the architects of this turnaround,” he said, presenting the Group’s higher carbon reduction targets.
That Källenius unlike Zetsche is not an engineer, is not considered a defect. “He is a business administrator with a great understanding of technology,” says one of his close associates. He was a “true car guy,” Zetsche once told him.
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The new group leader has two years to beat his pegs. For 2021 Zetsche should come back to Daimler after two years of cooling down as chairman of the supervisory board, unless he stumbles over the diesel affair. If Zetsche returns as chief overseer, then he should certainly measure Källenius also in the hitherto achieved.
with news agencies