AB Volvo’s CEO Olof Persson resigns unexpectedly and competitor Scania’s CEO, Martin Lundstedt, taking over in October. Kristian Åström, echo economics reporter analyzes.
Was it an unexpected decision by the board?
– A month ago, wrote Dagens Industri that Olof Persson would go, but nothing happened. At the AGM it was good miner and Persson said he had no plans to stop. In retrospect, it can be concluded that Volvo’s chairman Carl-Henric Svanberg said little cryptic, “that Volvo is not actively sought a new CEO.”
But, that he may go now, a few months before His major restructuring program should be in the harbor, is unexpected. What is behind that he must go?
– There has been criticism of the declining profitability of the Group. Olof Persson has said all along that margins will improve as the cost of the program progresses. But it has always been one less item that messed up, and several large owner seems to have grown tired and lost confidence in him.
– He’s mistake is that he promised improvements that were very aggressive and it created great expectations.
– You should remember that he had delivered incredibly good results subsidiaries CEO of Volvo construction equipment. Therefore, many people believed in a big performance boost. When it went the other way but falling margins speculation began.
– Then he carried out some less successful recruitment.
– But it must be added that he was of the market loaded for performance impairments that are beyond his control. The former lucrative China market has totally failed as the Chinese economy is switched to more consumption and services. You will not require as many road and excavators. A little ironic is that it was result in the same market, which made him almost seen as a savior when he took office in 2011. Now flip it over against him, that he was not such a successful dottterbolags CEO has been said, but he lived at a formidable economic upturn.
Who is Martin Lundstedt, who is the new President?
– He has 25 years in Scania behind, and ending as CEO. Volkswagen’s purchase of Scanina, has meant that he was transformed from publicly CEO of subsidiary manager, and it’s probably less fun for him. He leaves, can also be seen as a sign of the future development of Scania.
How?
– Cooperation between MAN and Scania now available in the Volkswagen Group will be expanded and the new truck manager at Volkswagen, Andreas Renchler, want to accelerate the process. It is likely that in the future we will see increasing German influence in Scania that manifests itself in the research and development moving to Germany. But it is in the long term.
No comments:
Post a Comment