Takeover of power at MAN: "We all have whiplash"

The decision in the VW group to take power by Scania managers at the group's sister company MAN causes horror in Munich.

Munich - The already announced formality was quickly off the table.

As announced the day before by the VW * commercial vehicle holding Traton, the MAN supervisory board decided: "Alexander Vlaskamp will be the new chairman * of the management board of MAN Truck & Bus SE." This means that not only Traton himself is led by Scania boss Christian Levin, who is also Chairman of the Supervisory Board of MAN.

The new MAN boss also comes from Scania management.

Frustration at MAN: "We all have whiplash"

He succeeds Andreas Tostmann, who is leaving the company.

“I am proud to say that I am handing over a new company - a NewMAN - to him.

Because in the past 16 months we have achieved a lot.

We have put MAN * on a solid footing.

We have reorganized our production network and made it more efficient, ”he posted.

"Good luck for the future and stay healthy."

Health was not the main concern for many employees yesterday.

There is frustration and uncertainty among the workforce.

However, those affected only openly talk about how they are doing with this new situation behind the scenes: "We all have whiplash," says one person.

Takeover of power at MAN: distrust in Scania

The employee representatives on the supervisory board also supported the change: Jürgen Kerner, IG Metall's main treasurer and MAN's supervisory board, relies on Vlaskamp, ​​who knows Germany and the industry. "I am convinced that he will quickly become a MAN employee and that he and his fellow board members will courageously and transparently guide the MAN workforce through the structural change." "On the Supervisory Board, we will ensure that MAN gets its legitimate role in the group's technology and production issues," he adds. As an appendage, MAN could not be successful.

However, it is precisely the role as an appendage that many employees fear.

The German-Swedish mistrust has a long history: It began when the then MAN and now Volvo boss Håkan Samuelsson, who had switched from Scania to MAN, started buying Scania shares.

A takeover offer by Samuelsson ultimately failed due to resistance from the then Scania shareholder family Wallenberg.

Burdened past: Scania and MAN

Now Volkswagen, itself a Scania shareholder, came into play.

The then corporate patriarch Ferdinand Piëch turned the tables.

He had MAN shares bought up on a large scale.

In the end, Wolfsburg was in charge of both Munich and Södertälie (Sweden).

Piëch made no secret of the fact that Scania was his favorite.

The MAN management was changed over and over again at very short intervals.

Piëch's goal was to make MAN as profitable as Scania was already.

However, this failed not least because of the different product mix.

While Scania limited itself to heavy commercial vehicles, MAN traditionally always had the much lower-margin medium-sized commercial vehicles in its range.

There is - similar to VW and Audi * - an unassailable profitability advantage for the more expensive vehicles.

With the departure of the late Ferdinand Piëch from Volkswagen, the relationship relaxed.

The competencies were distributed in such a way that neither the Swedes * nor the Germans felt ripped off.

Concern among MAN employees: hostile takeover?

But when Scania boss Christian Levin was appointed head of the commercial vehicle holding Traton * by VW, old wounds opened up again in Munich.

Many veteran MAN employees see this as a kind of hostile takeover.

The uncertainty grew when Traton launched a message in a somewhat hidden message on Wednesday afternoon that Scania manager Alexander Vlaskamp will replace Andreas Tostmann as MAN boss.

The MAN group, which with its roots in the Ruhr mining industry can look back on a 262-year history, has now been wound up.

At his most important subsidiary, MAN Truck & Bus SE, many now expect to be degraded to an extended workbench for Swedish commercial vehicle technology.

The weight of the ex-boss Tostmann's assurance that Munich will remain the main work *, as he recently assured our newspaper, cannot yet be foreseen.

Heavy series vehicles are produced in Krakow as well as in Munich.

No question about which location is more profitable.