More expensive, nobler, Mercedes: CEO
Ola Källenius
wants to make
Mercedes
a flawless luxury brand.
"Economics of Desire" was the motto that Källenius hammered into the analysts at the recent "Capital Markets Day".
At a stylish sundowner in
Karl Lagerfeld
's summer villa , Källenius announced that a Mercedes coupé from 1955 had just been auctioned for 135 million euros.
That sat.
All attention is now focused on the top segment.
So far, a lack of parts and long waiting times have kept prices high and ensured that Mercedes brought in a 15 percent return on sales in the first quarter.
Källenius' luxury strategy should soon guarantee these margins permanently.
In concrete terms, this means that from 2026 every fifth Mercedes will cost more than 100,000 euros.
The average price should rise from 70,000 to 85,000 euros.
And in the lower segment, somewhat coyly called "Entry Luxury", Mercedes wants to gradually reduce production.
In the Swabian country, the luxury strategy is met with criticism.
What if even the workforce soon can no longer afford their Benz?
When the luxury orientation is perceived as a swanky strategy and scares customers away?
Källenius, however, does not want to let his top luxury strategy be watered down by bargain hunters.
Källenius knows that Mercedes has always been a luxury.
And in the future just a bit more, as our authors Michael Freitag and Margret Hucko describe after talking to a number of insiders from the group: Mercedes and the tricky 100,000 euro question.
By the way: The a cappella song "Oh Lord, won't you buy me / a Mercedes Benz" was the last song that rock legend
Janis Joplin
recorded on October 1, 1970, three days before her death.
The business news of the day:
Habeck declares the alarm level:
Federal Economics Minister
Robert Habeck
has declared the second stage of the "gas emergency plan".
The reason for this is the reduced Russian gas deliveries and the high prices on the gas market.
"Gas is a scarce commodity from now on," said Habeck.
The status of the alert level is a prerequisite for getting more coal-fired power plants back on the grid.
Once the third stage has been reached, the state may also intervene in the gas market.
Strike at Germany's seaports:
Thousands of port workers began a warning strike on Thursday to fight for better wages.
The ports of Hamburg, Emden, Bremerhaven, Bremen, Brake and Wilhelmshaven are affected.
The already tense situation in the handling of containers and cargo ships is now getting worse.
Fight against inflation:
Norway's central bank has raised the key interest rate by 0.5 percent to combat inflation.
The Turkish central bank, on the other hand, is leaving interest rates unchanged – even though the country is facing an inflation rate of around 70 percent.
What else kept us busy:
Poker at Solarisbank:
You may also be a
Solarisbank
customer without even knowing it:
For example, anyone who trades shares with the online broker
Trade Republic , uses the
Samsung Pay
app
to pay or processes their Bitcoin purchases via the Binance
crypto exchange
is probably using an account with the Berlin fintech.
Strictly speaking, it's
Roland Folz 's
Solarisbank is a tech company with a German banking license.
It is therefore able to offer its now around 90 partners "Banking as a Service", which in this way slips under the liability umbrella of the bank controlled by the German financial regulator Bafin.
But the recent turbulence on the stock exchange and the crash on the crypto market are also affecting Solarisbank: the originally planned IPO is out of the question for the time being, and there is already trouble with the state supervisors.
This arouses the interest of financial investors such as
Advent
or
CVC
to get in at a possible bargain price.
But the Berlin neobank with more than a million customers in Germany does not want to sell itself short.
Our colleague Mirjam Hecking researched all of this and the background to poker at Solarisbank.
My recommendation for the evening:
Working for Major Tom:
So far, ex-Airbus boss
Tom Enders
has held back in his role as chairman of the air taxi start-up
Lilium
.
But that is over now.
Founder
Daniel Wiegand
has to vacate his position as CEO.
Instead,
Klaus Roewe takes over
, a man Enders knows well from their Airbus days together.
The plan to launch the Lilium-Jet, an electrically powered seven-seater that can take off and land vertically by 2025, is already considered utopian.
Enders is now relying on experience instead of a pioneering spirit in order to make the Lilium dream come true after all.
It's a brutal mission for "Major Tom", as our colleagues Christina Kyriasoglou, Michael Machatschke and Jonas Rest describe with many exclusively researched details.
Cordially, your Kai Lange