Daimler’s finance chief Uebber quits
• Top executive to depart after new CEO appointed and as sales and deliveries of Mercedes-Benz slump
Daimler CFO Bodo Uebber’s decision to leave the maker of Mercedes-Benz luxury cars marks the first top-level departure after the German manufacturer picked Ola Kallenius as CEO from 2019.
Daimler CFO Bodo Uebber’s decision to leave the maker of Mercedes-Benz luxury cars marks the first top-level departure after the German manufacturer picked Ola Kallenius as CEO from 2019.
Uebber, 59, informed supervisory board chair Manfred Bischoff that “he is not seeking to extend his current appointment”, Daimler said on Sunday. It did not provide a reason for the planned departure. His contract expires in December 2019.
Uebber was seen as a candidate to lead a holding company that bundles the three separate Daimler units. But the board’s decision in September to give Kallenius, 49, the same dual responsibility that veteran leader Dieter Zetsche has as CEO and head of the Mercedes-Benz cars unit indicated this scenario was unlikely.
The management change comes at a critical time for the world’s best-selling luxury-car maker and biggest producer of commercial vehicles by revenue. The challenges were evident on Monday when Mercedes said September deliveries slumped 8%. More complex emissions procedures took effect in Europe that month, triggering production bottlenecks that contributed to the decline. Audi was even harder hit, with its worldwide deliveries tumbling 22%.
Mercedes sales were also hit by delays in certification in some markets and by model changes, the company said.
Uebber has been one of the key architects behind Daimler’s new group structure, which was created to give its cars, trucks and mobility-services units more independence. Shareholders are set to vote on the changes at the annual general meeting in May.
“Given his experience, leadership and reputation in the financial community, his departure will be a big loss for Daimler,” Arndt Ellinghorst, a Londonbased analyst at Evercore ISI, said in a note.
“Uebber was supporting a stronger holding model with a separation of Daimler Group and operating business management functions.”
Zetsche last week defended the logic behind the biggest corporate overhaul in a decade. He said the revamp should boost efficiency and help to eventually turn around a stock slide that has erased a fifth of the company’s value this year.
The shares fell 1% to à55.07 at 12.05pm in Frankfurt, taking losses to 22% in 2018.
Investors have balked at the new structure and called for deeper changes, including separate listings of the trucks division or parts of the mobility-services operations. Daimler officials have denied plans for a complete divestment of any subsidiary but left the door open for a partial sale. The overhaul has also been criticised for its cost, earmarked at about à1bn, and for having too little instant benefit to valuation.