Five more years as Winterkorn stalks Toyota for attaining the Number One Global sales spot.
The Supervisory Board of Volkswagen AG unanimously extended the contract of Management Board Chairman Prof. Dr. Martin Winterkorn for another five years until the end of 2016, the company said yesterday in a statement.
Winterkorn, 63, became Chairman of the Management Board of Europe’s largest automaker on January 1, 2007, and his contract was due to expire on Dec. 31, 2011.
VW is in the midst of an ambitious expansion designed to make it the world’s largest automaker by surpassing Toyota by 2018. Winterkorn bought controlling interest in Swedish truckmaker Scania AB in 2008.
In December 2009, VW took 49.9% ownership in Porsche AG at a price of €3.9 billion amid the after effects of a reckless, leveraged and failed takeover bid of Volkswagen by Porsche that saw the ouster of Porsche chief executive Wendelin Wiedeking and chief financial officer Holger Haerter.
VW will buy the balance in 2011. VW expects that Porsche will eventually add €700 million in profits annually to its business. Critics say it is ironic that the profitable VW is also financing the Porsche takeover by issuing debt and watering its stock.
Winterkorn also wants to double production capacity in China with two new plants.
Volkswagen will also open a factory in the United States this year to build a new mid-size Passat sedan from a unique platform. Critics say billions are at risk unless the car sells out. Capacity of the Chattanooga, Tennessee plant is 150,000 cars.
