Crisis Team Selected
Mitsubishi! > News > Japan > Mitsubishi Motors > 2004 > Crisis Team Formed, Daimler Quits
Crisis Management Team Formed
April 29, 2004. Juergen Schrempp is to stay. After a meeting in New York, the supervisory board issued a statement supporting him fully. [Note: Action of board is quite discouraging to long-suffering shareholders. Unless this is just for public image and later in this year Schrempp and the gang resign citing "personal reasons" and the board accepts their resignations "with deep regret," mitsubishisucks.com thinks that the company it is time to dump the stock. In our view Schrempp is out of touch and so is the board. The fact that Juergen Schrempp's contract was extended by 3 years just a week ago, and the apparent willingness of the board to accept the continual mistakes of its execs show the low level of stockholder protection in Germany against this old-boys network executives.] Juergen Hubbert of Mercedes remains in his current position. Wolfgang Bernhard, current CEO of Chrysler, slated to replace him will be leaving the group, according to sources.
April 28, 2004. MMC will hold a press conference on Friday after the extra-ordinary shareholders' meeting. David Ibison of Financial Times reported that it was learnt that MMC's crisis committee has come to the conclusion that only half of the original amount of 700 billion yens is needed to revitalize the ailing company. It thought that estimates of Daimler Chrysler were far-fetched. It seems that it plan to share the burden of this investment among the three Mitsubishi group companies involved in this plan. Nikkei reported that 200 billion yens is the combined amount Mitsubishi Heavy, Mitsubishi Corp and Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi plan to give to MMC to develop new models.
April 28, 2004. Hiroshi Okuda, president of the Japan Business Federation and chairman of Toyota Motor asked MMC to make a decision soon in order to minimize fallout for the Japanese economy. A team of 40 has been set up consisting mostly of MMC execs and the rest one fourth from the three Mitsubishi group companies to draw up plans to revitalize the company. A couple of days ago Rolf Eckrodt had resigned. Keiichiro Hashimoto, CFO of MMC, will be the acting-president until a replacement is found. Side note: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, a German newspaper, reported that Juergen Schrempp, Eckhard Cordes and head of group strategy, Ruediger Grube offered to resign last week. Stuttgarter Zeitung reported that eight of 11 board members, including Mercedes's head Juergen Hubbert and CFO Manfred Gentz, had opposed Schrempp on Mitsubishi Motors plan. Dieter Zetsche of Chrysler too had opposed Schrempp according to sources.
Nihon Keizai Shimbun (Newspaper) reported that DaimlerChrysler AG has decided to appoint Eckhard Cordes as a part-time director of MMC as planned.
Previous stories in reverse chronological order (Newer ones first)
Mitsubishi Group Shocked by Daimler's DecisionDaimler Chrysler Decides to Quit Mitsubishi Motors' Resue Plan
Daimer and Mitsubishi Motors Planning Rescue Together