Profit
beat wins VW respite after boardroom clash
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[April 29, 2015]
By Andreas Cremer
BERLIN (Reuters) - Cost cutting and an
improving European car market helped Volkswagen beat first-quarter
profit forecasts, easing the pressure on management following the shock
ouster of long-standing chairman Ferdinand Piech.
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Four days after Piech quit in a showdown with his chief executive,
Europe's largest automaker posted a 17 percent rise in operating
profit and the first quarterly increase in earnings for seven years
at Spanish division Seat.
Operating profit reached 3.33 billion euros ($3.65 billion),
Volkswagen (VW) said on Wednesday, close to the top end of forecasts
in a Reuters poll of analysts and well above the average estimate of
3.12 billion euros.
VW shares were up 1.3 percent to 243.40 euros by 0925 GMT, one of
the biggest gains on Germany's blue-chip DAX index.
With Piech raising question marks about CEO Martin Winterkorn's
ability to drive through improvements at VW, analysts were
particularly relieved by signs of progress with the group's modular
production strategy which aims to use a core range of components
across a wide variety of models.
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"These are good numbers," Bankhaus Metzler's Juergen Pieper said.
"The modular production strategy is progressing and tailwinds may
grow over the course of the year," he said, citing positive currency
effects and cost savings at the core VW brand.
Earnings were boosted by a strengthening economic recovery in Europe
-- destination of 40 percent of the group's auto sales -- and by
progress in the VW brand's drive to cut costs by 5 billion euros a
year by 2017.
CHALLENGING YEAR
However, a slowdown in emerging economies, falling deliveries in the
United States and a collapse in Russian demand pose challenges for
VW and still leave questions over Winterkorn's strategy.
The underperformance of the VW brand in the United States and Latin
America was one factor leading Piech to provoke the two-week
confrontation with VW's CEO that ended up forcing the chairman to
resign.
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The group said cost cuts boosted earnings by "a low triple-digit
million-euro" amount at the VW brand between January and March,
lifting the brand's operating margin to 2 percent from 1.8 percent
-- still far off its 6 percent long-term goal.
"We have always emphasized that 2015 will be a challenging year for
the automotive industry as a whole, and also for us," Winterkorn
said. "Our key figures show that the VW group remains on course,
despite the headwinds."
The German group still expects higher unit sales, revenue and an
operating margin between 5.5 and 6.5 percent this year, after it
reached 6.3 percent last year.
"The environment is getting better, there's a good chance they'll
raise their margin target," Bankhaus Metzler Pieper said.
($1 = 0.9117 euros)
(Additional reporting by Jan Schwartz.; Editing by Georgina Prodhan
and Mark Potter)
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