End of the gravy train at Volkswagen

Volkswagen Chief executive Matthias Muller. File picture: Tobias Schwarz / Reuters.

Volkswagen Chief executive Matthias Muller. File picture: Tobias Schwarz / Reuters.

Published Jun 23, 2016

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Wolfsburg - Volkswagen bosses have pledged a massive shake-up at the troubled car giant - including selling off its private jets and axing an executive-only lift.

Chief executive Matthias Muller used the first annual shareholders meeting since the emissions scandal broke to declare: “What is done cannot be undone.”

He apologised for the scandal but failed to address a raft of corporate governance issues investors say are behind the failings at the firm.

Instead VW said it was shrinking its fleet of private jets and axing a lift at its head office that only executives can use.

Muller told the meeting of about 3000 shareholders: “It is all the more painful for you, for us, and for me personally that rules were broken and ethical boundaries transgressed.” Shareholders demanded that chairman Hans Dieter Poetsch, the former finance director at VW, be replaced as chairman of the meeting, but the motion was voted down.

Ulrich Hocker of Germany’s DSW association of private investors said: “We are looking at a shambles” as he blamed the emissions scandal on a “collective failure” by the management board.

Daily Mail

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