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Herbert Diess:
The VW boss will probably stay on board
Photo: Kay Nietfeld / picture alliance / dpa
According to insiders, Volkswagen boss Herbert Diess can continue to run the Wolfsburg-based car company.
After his future as CEO has been hanging by a thread for a long time in recent weeks because of the power struggle with the works council, there are increasing signs that the 63-year-old will be able to stay in office.
"It goes in the direction that the dispute is settled and Diess remains CEO," said a person with knowledge of the deliberations on Monday the Reuters news agency.
The solution found in lengthy negotiations provides for VW brand boss Ralf Brandstätter to rise to the group's executive board.
This should concentrate on strategic issues of corporate management.
A second person said: "The pendulum is clearly leaning so that this remains."
With the rise of Brandstätter, Diess was losing influence on the operational business, it was said in group circles. Neither Volkswagen nor Porsche SE, over which the Porsche and Piech families hold the majority of voting rights in the Wolfsburg-based car maker, commented. The works council also declined to comment.
Supervisory board chairman Hans Dieter Pötsch had previously mediated in countless conversations between the fronts. The dispute broke out at the end of September when business games by Diess for a possible reduction of 30,000 jobs in Germany became known. The works council saw this as a massive breach of trust. The state of Lower Saxony, which has a 20 percent stake in Volkswagen, was also appalled. It was only in July that the owners extended Diess' contract for the third time and confirmed his course of accelerating the transformation into a technology provider modeled on the US electric car manufacturer Tesla.
From corporate circles it was also said that Pötsch had pressed for an agreement in the Personnel Diess before the decisive supervisory board meeting on Thursday.
Then the supervisory body should approve the investment planning for the next five years.
On Wednesday, the leadership circle of the supervisory board is to prepare the meeting.
la / reuters / dpa