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VOLVO

Ex-CEO slams Volvo Cars over sacking

Stefan Jacoby, the ex-CEO of Volvo Cars, has admitted to feeling cheated by his old company after they fired him last year halfway through his recovery from a stroke.

Published: 10 January 2013 17:10 CET
Ex-CEO slams Volvo Cars over sacking

Jacoby, who was was the company head until October last year, claimed that he had no warning he would be fired by the Swedish company.

“I was shocked. After everything I did over two years, it felt like I’d been tossed out like rubbish. It was really, really tough,” he told the Dagens Industri newspaper (DI).

“There was surely a more elegant way to handle it.”

Jacoby suffered a stroke at home mid-September, ending up at the Sahlgrenska Hospital, although he later claimed it was only minor.

In October, Håkan Samuelsson, former chairman of German truck maker MAN, was named the new Volvo Cars CEO.

Jacoby said it felt “very strange” to be informed of his redundancy when he was in the middle of his sickness.

“I was kicked out right in the middle of the game. And to this day I’ve still not had any explanation of why it happened. You can only speculate with these things,” he said.

The TT news agency announced in November that according to company policy, Jacoby was entitled to some 8 million kronor ($1.2 million) in severance pay.

Despite being fired from the company, Jacoby admits that it opened a new door in his life.

“I really loved my job, maybe too much. It was a shock, but on the other hand, it gave me a chance to do something new.”

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VOLVO

Sweden’s Volvo regains strength after pandemic puts brakes on earnings

Swedish truck maker Volvo Group was hit by a sharp drop in earnings due to the coronavirus pandemic, but business rebounded at the end of the year.

Published: 3 February 2021 12:21 CET
Sweden's Volvo regains strength after pandemic puts brakes on earnings
Volvo Group CEO Martin Lundstedt. Photo: Adam Ihse/TT

In 2020, the group saw “dramatic fluctuations in demand” due to the Covid-19 pandemic, chief executive Martin Lundstedt said in a statement.

For 2021, Volvo raised its sales forecasts in its trucks division – its core business – in Europe, North America and Brazil.

However, it said it also expected “production disturbances and increased costs” due to a “strained” supply chain, noting a global shortage of semiconductors across industries.

The truck making sector is particularly sensitive to the global economic situation and is usually hard hit during crises.

In March, as the pandemic took hold around the world, Volvo suspended operations at most of its sites in 18 countries and halted production at Renault Trucks, which it owns, in Belgium and France.

Operations gradually resumed mid-year, but not enough to compensate for the drop in earnings.

With annual sales down 22 percent to 338 billion kronor (33.4 billion euros, $40 billion), the group posted a 46 percent plunge in net profit to 19.3 billion kronor (1.9 billion euros).

Operating margin fell from 11.5 to 8.1 percent.

However, the group did manage to cut costs by 20 percent.

“We have significantly improved our volume and cost flexibility, which were crucial factors behind our earnings resilience in 2020,” the group said.

Volvo's business regained strength in the second half of the year.

“Customer usage of trucks and machines increased when the Covid-19 restrictions were eased during the summer and this development continued during both the third and fourth quarters,” it said.

“Both the transport activity and the construction business are back at levels on par with the prior year in most markets.”

For the fourth quarter alone, the company reported a 38-percent rise in net profit from a year earlier.

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