Big Investor Says VW’s Chairman and CEO Should Be Replaced

A senior portfolio manager with Germany’s huge Union Asset Management Holding AG says Volkswagen AG should replace its newly installed CEO and chairman—along with several members of its supervisory board—with outsiders to restore confidence in the company.

CEO Matthias Mueller and Chairman Hans Dieter Poetsch have been in their new jobs less than six weeks since VW’s widening diesel emission cheating scandal broke in mid-September.

But Ingo Speich, a senior portfolio manager with Germany’s giant Union Asset Management Holding AG, tells the Financial Times VW needs new leadership to restore trust among investors. Union Investment is a top 15 investor in VW’s preference shares, according to the FT, which observes that VW’s share price has plummeted 70% since the scandal began.

Critics complain that choosing the longtime VW executives for the new assignments signals a lack of commitment to curing the company’s ills. They complain that VW’s 20-member supervisory board includes only one outsider. Speich suggests the carmaker emulate Siemens AG, which responded to a bribery scandal eight years ago by installing outside executives as CEO and chairman.