Volkswagen starts with profits

Volkswagen has in the first quarter of the current year, the net income as a result of advances in the Save and the recovery of the increased demand for automobiles in Europe was surprisingly strong.



According to the light of power struggle against€Ferdinand Piech is waiting for Volkswagen CEO Martin Winterkorn said with a glossy quarterly balance sheet. The surprisingly strong operating profit jumped to the beginning of the year by almost 17 percent to 3.3 billion euros, as Volkswagen announced on Wednesday before the beginning of the exchange trading.

Cost-cutting measures will affect

Winterkorn can also first successes of his austerity measures. The brand with the VW logo, for a good half of the turnover, operating profit in the first quarter increased by 16.8 percent to 514 million euros. The return on investment (ROI) remained unchanged at 2.0 (previous year 1.8) percent but lean. In the view of Analysts further steps must follow, in order to increase profitability.

Piech had in the Supervisory Board in addition to the weak profit margin of the main brand also denounced a misguided policy in the United States. The problems there are likely VW occupied for some time, because the announced large off-road vehicles are only 2016/2017 on the market.

Piech had surprisingly his resignation as supervisory board chairman on Saturday and from all other mandates in the global enterprise. Previously, he was with the plan in the narrower leaderships were failed, Winterkorn to urge from the office. The 78-year-old had more than two weeks ago by "Der Spiegel" article of his pupil publicly distanced himself and the Volkswagen Group plunged into a deep crisis.

After his departure is open, who at the top of the supervisory body of the Zwolf-Marken -Empire is to follow. As a possible candidate is CEO Winterkorn. He had the influential families Porsche and Piech before long a change in the Supervisory Board in order to Piech to redeem it, if its mandate expires in 2017. However, this was long before the power struggle broke out.