Translated material
AC Managers
There is a personnel storm in the management of German energy concerns
In the German energy industry, a situation called power paralysis is increasingly brewing. Today, three of the country's four leading concerns are affected by the disease - RWE, EnBW (Energie Baden-Wuerttemberg), as well as the Swedish Vattenfall, which is actively operating in the German market. And only E.ON, the largest diversified energy concern in Germany, demonstrates stability and continuity of leadership.After accidents at German nuclear power plants owned by the Swedish Vattenfall, the concern's image suffered greatly. The chair under Vattenfall chief Lars Göran Josefsson has also become less stable. At the same time, the company’s policy in Germany raises questions among experts. On the one hand, Mr. Josefsson, who is among Chancellor Angela Merkel's closest energy advisers, is demanding stricter requirements for greenhouse gas emissions. On the other hand, power plants owned by Vattenfall in the new federal states burn East German brown coal, bringing significant profits to the parent concern in Sweden.
The last stage of his career was not the best for the 44-year-old boss of the EnBW concern, Utz Klaassen: the shareholders were able to achieve his removal from the post of chairman of the board. There is a contender for this position - Hans Peter Willis, who is known as a “quiet technocrat”. True, the owners of the concern were quite indignant at the size of the payments that accompany Mr. Klaassen’s departure. According to the leading German business newspaper Handelsblatt, until the disgraced top manager reaches the age of 63, when he can receive an official provisional pension (the retirement age in Germany starts at 65), he will receive about 400 thousand annually. Euro.
The staff of RWE, Germany's second largest electricity producing concern, has also been in a fever for months. Today, his reign has created a dual power. The contract of the current chairman of the board, Dutchman Harry Roels (he has headed the board of RWE since 2003), expires in January 2008 and, to the surprise of many, was not renewed last year. Even then there were rumors that the change of power would occur ahead of schedule. And so it happened: on November 1, the supervisory board introduced his successor, 51-year-old Jürgen Grossmann, into the game. This is one of the very few German businessmen who are also called oligarchs here.
It was assumed that the transfer of powers would take place in a “continuity” mode. Harry Roels himself was convinced of this, believing that the newcomer would first make an introductory tour of the enterprise, and only then gradually approach the helm of the concern. However, Mr. Grossmann, a giant of more than two meters tall and weighing 130 kg, said that his arrival would begin with a “big splash” at RWE this year. He did not provide any specific details, but managed to share his plans for reorganizing the concern. The first to go under his knife, apparently, is the RWE Energy holding, whose 500 employees are based in Dortmund and are responsible for sales issues. What they actually do is unclear to many even in the concern itself and, presumably, to Mr. Grossmann. Contact with customers and the actual sales of electricity and gas are carried out by regional RWE subsidiaries, such as RWE Rhein-Ruhr or Koblenzer Kevag. The new chief of RWE believes that it would be wiser to liquidate RWE Energy altogether and strengthen the staff of regional firms, as well as the central apparatus. This is just one of the ideas of the future head of the board to radically reform RWE.
At the end of last year, Mr. Grossmann stepped down from the operational management of his steel holding Georgsmarienhuette in Hamburg. Even earlier, in May 2006, Grossmann, who has good connections in the highest political spheres, was appointed to the supervisory board of the Volkswagen concern on the recommendation of the Prime Minister of Lower Saxony, Christian Wulff. He often spends his leisure time in the evenings in the capital's Borchardt restaurant in the company of his long-term partner at the card table, Gerhard Schröder, and government press secretary Bela Anda, who served as chancellor. There the trio also celebrated the success of the ex-chancellor’s book entitled “Decisions. My life is in politics."
Jürgen Grossmann will become the next person from Gerhard Schröder's circle to occupy one of the most important positions in the German energy sector. At one time, Werner Müller, the non-partisan minister of economics of the “red-green” government, took over the post of chief of the Ruhrkohle coal concern. Alfred Tacke, State Secretary at the Ministry of Economy, settled on the top floor of the Steag concern, a 100 percent subsidiary of the energy giant RAG.
In RWE, the new boss is already the stuff of legends. So, they say that recently in one of the noble New York yacht clubs, Mr. Grossmann and his friends had such a party that even a check with a round sum in words, which the oligarch personally presented with an apology, could not convince the owners of the establishment of the best intentions of the cheerful company . It is still unclear when the future boss will be able to begin his plans to build a new RWE. The other day, the head of the RWE supervisory board, Thomas Fischer, met with Mr. Roels, who tried to convince the Dutchman to vacate his chair early. Reportedly, no breakthrough was achieved in the conversation. Harry Roels is ready to leave in November, but for this he demands a penalty, the size of which, according to rumors, goes beyond the financial capabilities of the energy giant.