Volkswagen to face investor grilling on China, costs at capital markets day

3:11 am Friday, June 16th, 2023

By Jan Schwartz and Victoria Waldersee

(Reuters) – Volkswagen will face investors hungry for answers at its capital markets day next Wednesday on how it will achieve high cost-cutting targets and whether it will heed their calls for an independent audit of its co-owned Xinjiang plant.

Pressure is high after a turbulent shareholder meeting in May where activists interrupted proceedings with protests against the carmaker’s jointly-owned plant in Urumqi, Xinjiang and investors grilled executives on their plans to take on Chinese competition in electric vehicles.

“The 21 June CMD is an opportunity to reset a fraught relationship with investors, a challenging exercise,” Jefferies wrote in a note on Friday.

The carmaker has invited investors to the “Porsche Experience Center” at a racetrack in southwest Germany to test-drive its cars, hear presentations on its brands and get an updated financial strategy from CEO Oliver Blume and CFO Arno Antlitz.

The Porsche-Piech family, who own 31.9% of Volkswagen, are expecting Blume to begin replicating his success from Porsche at Volkswagen, a source close to the families said, with the caveat that a multi-brand group cannot achieve the same margins as a luxury player.

One source close to the company said Stellantis, who have a similar number of brands as Volkswagen but higher margins, was viewed by some as a benchmark – as well as growing Chinese EV giants like BYD.

Investors also demanded that Volkswagen conduct an independent audit of the Urumqi plant, which executives have is only possible with the agreement of joint venture partner SAIC.

Two investors, who declined to be named, said they expect the topic to come up again on Wednesday.

Alongside targets, investors needed details on how the carmaker expects to make its EV production more cost-effective, Daniel Roeska of Bernstein Research wrote in a note on Thursday.

“The risk is that instead we see more punchy earnings and volume targets, with little to support them,” he added.

(Reporting by Jan Schwartz and Victoria Waldersee; Editing by Conor Humphries)