VW to propose CFO Poetsch as chairman - The Detroit News
Volkswagen AG will nominate Chief Financial Officer Hans Dieter Poetsch as its new chairman, opting for a consensual figure to move beyond a power struggle that led to the abrupt departure of former Chairman Ferdinand Piech. Poetsch will be proposed for the post at an extraordinary shareholders meeting in November, the Wolfsburg, Germany-based company said on Thursday in a statement. VW’s supervisory board presidium voted to back the proposal from Porsche Automobil Holding SE, which is controlled by the Porsche-Piech family and owns the majority of Volkswagen’s common stock. Poetsch’s appointment as chairman would fill a vacancy that opened in April after Piech tried and failed to oust Chief Executive Officer Martin Winterkorn. While Poetsch, who has been VW’s CFO since 2003, is seen as a safe choice and won’t polarize the power players at Volkswagen, he would shift from day-to-day management to an oversight role without a break. “While we very much respect Mr. Poetsch as CFO, we are against his direct transition to the head of the supervisory board,” Ingo Speich, a fund manager at Union Investment, said via e-mail. Clemens Boersig, Deutsche Bank AG’s former chairman, made the leap, as did Karl-Hermann Baumann at Siemens AG. “There may be some corporate governance concerns with a management board member going straight to becoming chairman, but I think it’s... Source: www.detroitnews.com
