At Daimler, Zetsche, the walrus-mustached former head of Chrysler during a disastrous 10-year marriage, is struggling to contain a plunge in Mercedes sales after a profit warning, amid speculation it might be forced to merge with BMW, its bitter rival.
BMW’s Reithofer has so far retained the support of the Quandt family, who owns 46 percent of the firm. But the family, which rescued a near-bankrupt BMW 50 years ago, is expanding its interests elsewhere. Reithofer is also surrounded by a new, more youthful board, including sales chief, Ian Robertson.
Carl-Peter Forster, president of GM Europe and a former BMW director, may also feel the heat as a US$3.3 billion rescue plan for Opel, Vauxhall and Saab falters in the wake of the White House’s rejection of Wagoner’s restructuring program. At most, it buys German Chancellor Angela Merkel more time to sort out the threat to a quarter of a million jobs before the Sept. 29 general election.
Streiff, victim of a boardroom coup, was not even thanked for his stint as Peugeot chief in a curt statement from chairman Thierry Peugeot, who is appointing Corus boss, Philippe Varin, to succeed him.
Varin, former head of aluminium group Pechiney, is highly regarded after turning around Anglo-Dutch Corus, integrating British Steel and Hoogovens and presiding over the sale to India’s Tata group. Streiff, the former deputy chief executive of glassmaker St Gobain and who reportedly suffered a mini-stroke last year, made enemies in the boardroom and lost its confidence — including crucially that of the controlling Peugeot family — with his abrasive style, sole focus on cost-cutting that shed 11,000 jobs and lack of strategic vision, including for mergers.
He had previously lasted just 100 days as head of Airbus as his drive to cut costs and lack of diplomatic skills alienated the key Franco-German players, including both governments, at the planemaker’s owner, EADS.
There will be upheavals not only in boardrooms as the tarnished old guard makes way for the “green new deal” protagonists of electric cars, but in the industry as a whole.
Obama has ensured this with the stroke of a pen — and an unprecedentedly blunt intervention.
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