Aston Martin Lagonda Global Holdings PLC is poised to replace chief executive officer Andy Palmer with the head of Daimler AG’s Mercedes-AMG performance division, according to people familiar with the matter.
AMG head Tobias Moers could be named as Aston Martin’s new CEO as soon as this week, the people said, asking not to be named because the matter is confidential.
In a statement, Aston Martin said it was reviewing its management team and any announcement would “be made as and when appropriate.”
Photo: Reuters
The Financial Times reported earlier on the planned changes, saying an official announcement was expected today.
Palmer had not been informed of the upcoming announcement, the newspaper reported.
The shakeup comes less than two months after the 107-year-old British luxury carmaker brought in new investors led by billionaire Lawrence Stroll, who became executive chairman.
The £536 million (US$663 million) capital infusion was meant to rescue the debt-laden company, which has struggled since Palmer took it public in 2018 with a plan to mimic the success of Italy’s Ferrari NV.
Instead, sales stalled, inventory piled up and Aston Martin found itself short of cash earlier this year even before the coronavirus threw the auto industry into a virtual standstill.
The company has seen its shares fall more than 90 percent since the initial public offering.
Aston Martin earlier this month said that it might need to raise more funds and take further steps to cut costs and control cash as the car-sales collapse upends its turnaround plan.
Palmer, who joined Aston Martin from Nissan in 2014, has been focused on the introduction of the pivotal DBX, a US$189,000 sports-utility vehicle at the heart of Aston Martin’s comeback strategy.
The company is banking on the model selling in higher volumes than the iconic sports cars made famous in the early James Bond movies.
Moers, 54, studied engineering in Offenburg, Germany. He briefly worked at an electric-car startup before joining AMG, where he has held the top job since October 2013.
Under his watch, the performance-car brand expanded its product lineup, adding compact pocket rockets like the GLA 45, and stepped up development of hybrid models.
At Aston Martin, DBX orders have continued to grow even with most showrooms closed, the company has said. Deliveries are on track to begin in summer, and the company plans to launch derivative models next year.
Aston Martin reported a £76.6 million operating loss in the three months ended in March, and said it could not give a clear view on the full-year outlook.
Additional reporting by Reuters
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the