Volkswagen boss Herbert Diess surprisingly leaves the Wolfsburg carmaker at the end of August. The current Porsche boss has already been chosen as his successor.
Herbert Diess resigns as CEO of the Volkswagen Group. The company surprisingly announced on Friday evening that the 63-year-old had agreed with the supervisory board to leave on September 1st. Successor is to be Porsche boss Oliver Blume.
This unexpected announcement hit VW shares after hours. The papers lose 2.6 percent in Frankfurt late trading after closing at EUR 134.32.
Blume has been in conversation for a long time
Blume is to continue his position at Porsche. There he is working on an IPO for the VW subsidiary in the fall. Blume has long been considered a possible successor to Diess. His name had been mentioned several times behind the scenes when a conflict between the VW boss and the powerful works council over possible new austerity programs escalated last year. Even before that, there had been violent differences of opinion with parts of the supervisory board about the further strategy and about a possible drastic job cut at Europe’s largest car manufacturer.
Chairman of the Supervisory Board Hans Dieter Pötsch thanked Diess. “During his time as CEO of the Volkswagen brand and of the Group, he played a key role in driving forward the transformation of the company.” Diess pushed the conversion of VW in e-mobility significantly. However, there have also been a number of problems recently, especially with the sluggish and increasingly expensive development of proprietary software and IT systems.