Opel CEO says brand has ‘reinvented’ itself and returned to profit...

Opel’s CEO says the German firm has “reinvented” itself under the PSA Group and is on track to achieve its target profit margin years ahead of schedule.

The PSA Group, of course, completed its acquisition of Opel and Vauxhall from General Motors back in March 2017.

Speaking to Automotive News Europe, CEO Michael Lohscheller said “we reinvented Opel”.

“We started with symbolic topics. Whether it was cookies at meetings or the personal chauffeur for the CEO, cost cuts were made across the board,” he explained.

“When we temporarily cut working hours at our Rüsselsheim factory in January 2018, we also reduced hours here at headquarters. That never happened before. We reduced the number of senior executives by almost one-third to accelerate the organisation.

“These moves did not go unnoticed. People saw a whole new company. This had a profound effect internally and helped the team execute much more quickly and easily.

“We couldn't have imagined that we would slash fixed costs by 28 percent last year. The biggest levers, however, were the reduced complexity combined with improved pricing power and revenue per car. They really made the turnaround possible,” Lohscheller said.