Azernews.Az

By Bloomberg

Volkswagen AG Chief Executive Officer Martin Winterkorn will appear before the leadership committee of the German carmaker’s supervisory board on Thursday afternoon to discuss his future, according to people familiar with the matter.

The presidium of VW’s supervisory board, comprising six members, is set to discuss a proposal from Chairman Ferdinand Piech for the future leadership of Europe’s largest auto manufacturer, said the people, who asked not to be identified as the talks are private. Sabine Schlemmer-Kaune, a spokeswoman for the German state of Lower Saxony, confirmed that the presidium is convening while declining to disclose the topic.

The presidium usually prepares the meetings of the entire 20-person supervisory board. Apart from the board’s chairman, Piech, who also is a representative of one of the two families that control VW, presidium members include labor union chief Bernd Osterloh; his deputy, Stephan Wolf; Berthold Huber, representing the IG Metall union; Wolfgang Porsche, Piech’s cousin, representing the other shareholder family; and Lower Saxony Prime Minister Stephan Weil.

Piech’s comments that he’s keeping himself “at a distance from Winterkorn” in a Der Spiegel magazine interview published Friday marked a surprise shift in ties following the two executives’ decades of work together. The chairman also said the CEO was no longer in line to succeed him as head of the supervisory board. Since then, Osterloh and Weil have stated their support for Winterkorn and Porsche has said his cousin’s comments aren’t backed by the entire family.

VW’s top shareholders are the Porsche and Piech families with a combined holding, Lower Saxony and the Qatar Investment Authority sovereign-wealth fund.

An official at Wolfsburg-based VW verified that Winterkorn had canceled a meeting with politicians in the nearby town of Goettingen that was scheduled this afternoon, declining to comment further.