April 11, 2018—Volkswagen AG’s board has ended the tenure of CEO Matthias Mueller and is likely to turn to a leader who can spearhead sweeping changes, according to Bloomberg.
Key stakeholders appear to have come to the conclusion that they couldn’t afford to wait a couple more years for Mueller’s contract to expire to make a change at the top. Now, an overhaul is expected that could include a partial IPO of the OEM’s heavy trucks division.
Mueller reportedly agreed to step aside from his role with VW. With him aside, the OEM’s remaining leaders have reportedly settled on Herbert Dies as his successor. On Tuesday, VW issued a press release that simply noted that its board was considering changes that included naming a new CEO. The 59-year-old Diess, a past senior executive, had joined VW from BMW AG in 2015.
VW shares gained as much as 0.7 percent on Wednesday and were up 0.5 percent as of mid-morning in Germany; the stock has gained 3.5 percent this year. The OEM’s supervisory board is scheduled to meet on Friday to further discuss management reshuffling, according to the bloomberg.com report.
