more on bmw's troubles

[Eaton Dave <dave.eaton@minedu.govt.nz>]

for those of you who haven't heard over the last week, heads have rolled at
bmw in response to the trouble the company has found itself in.  chief
executive bernd pischetsrieder and his second in command wolfgang reitzle
have both left.  reitzle is a surprise, as most had thought he would take
the top job when pischetsrieder got the chop. pischetsrieder has been
replaced by joachim milberg

so, the anglophile pischetsrieder is being blamed (rightly so) for the rover
debacle which is costing the quandt family (47% shareholders) a fair buit of
profit.

but that still does not solve the following problems :-

1)	a number of very expensive exclusive niche vehicles which are not
going to be profitable.
2)	the compact has sunk without trace against the a3 mainly (+golf) ,
18 months for a replacement.
3)	the 5 series "has a slow leak" (according to autocar).
4)	the 7 series, despite facelift, is struggling
5)	the 3 series is selling well but still being outsold in germany
6)	rover has been a disaster (and the reason for the public
executions).  rover requires a good front-drive platform and bmw has no
expertise in this.  coupled with notorious quality problems, and rover is in
pretty deep.
7)	money has to be found to build a rolls royce factory by 2003.
8)	serious money is having to go into the formula 1 campaign, along
with the new sportscar (confirmed to be racing in the usa at sebring).

at least the motorsports campaign is still on-track according to the board,
despite the fact that pischetsrieder's replacement joachim milberg
apparently has a background in production engineering and is less
enthusiastic about racing.

the company is taking a savaging in the british specialist press, notably
"car" which has been pretty lukewarm about all their new mainstream cars.
even "autocar" notable for it's affinity to bmw, has been getting negative.

these are not good days for bmw.

dave
'95 rs2
'90 ur-q