The management of the Munich truck manufacturer is being restructured.
(Photo: Pablo Castagnola / VW)
Munich The Volkswagen commercial vehicle subsidiary Traton does not come to rest. Now MAN boss Andreas Tostmann has to go. Former Scania manager Alexander Vlaskamp will be his successor at the helm of the traditional Munich company, the company announced on Thursday. The supervisory board still has to approve the personnel.
Vlaskamp was most recently responsible for sales at Scania. He can combine his international wealth of experience with knowledge of the efficiency of modularization, said Traton boss Christian Levin. “Not only will MAN benefit from this, but the entire Traton Group.”
MAN is considered a problem child in the Traton group and lags far behind Scania in terms of returns. The company is in the middle of a restructuring process in which 3,500 jobs are to be cut and two plants have been sold. The long-established company is a long way from achieving its target return of eight percent.
Levin himself had only taken over the top position at Traton in October. His most important task is to improve the collaboration between the Scania, MAN and Navistar brands. According to corporate circles, the cooperation between MAN and Scania is stuck in electromobility, for example, where the two truck manufacturers are each developing their own battery types – unlike in the VW Group, where CEO Herbert Diess relies on a standard cell.
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Traton is listed on the stock exchange, but 90 percent is owned by the VW group, which keeps the Munich company on a short leash and who most recently provided former works council chief Bernd Osterloh as head of human resources for the then Traton boss Matthias Gründler.
More: Top managers have to leave: Chaos days at VW subsidiary Traton