Volkswagen's Piech asked Porsche CEO to be ready to take VW helm: Spiegel

[April 24, 2015]  BERLIN (Reuters) - Volkswagen <VOWG_p.DE> Chairman Ferdinand Piech asked Porsche Chief Executive Matthias Mueller at the start of this week to be prepared to take the helm at VW, Spiegel Online reported on Friday without citing the source of the information.

Piech, who triggered a leadership crisis at Europe's largest automaker this month by publicly withdrawing support for VW Chief Executive Martin Winterkorn, on Thursday denied rumors he was still pushing for the CEO's dismissal.

Senior supervisory board members backed Winterkorn at an April 16 meeting with Piech.

The VW chairman was isolated on the board's six-member panel and would have faced calls for his own resignation had he not backed down to support Winterkorn along with the five other members, sources said.

Spokesmen for Piech's office in Salzburg and Porsche declined to comment.

(Reporting by Andreas Cremer; editing by David Clarke)

[© 2015 Thomson Reuters. All rights reserved.]

Copyright 2015 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.