Daimler shifts Smart boss Adt to new role

After less than a year at the helm of Daimler’s troubled Smart brand, Katrin Adt will move to a new post to run Mercedes-Benz's wholly owned and operated dealerships in Europe.

The 46-year-old executive took over as head of Smart last October, presenting a new concept car together with her predecessor, Annette Winkler, at the Paris auto show.

Starting in July, Adt will manage the newly created subsidiary Mercedes-Benz Cars Own Retail Europe, reporting to Daimler board member for sales and marketing Britta Seeger, the company said in a release.

Adt's unit bundles a number of European showrooms and dealerships the automaker has acquired over the last few years, often when its franchise partner wanted or had to exit the business.

Mercedes had restructured its German own retail showrooms several years ago, selling a number of them in particular to its Chinese dealer partner Lei Hong Shing. The structurally low margins in automotive retail had diluted Mercedes's profitability, making it more difficult to achieve its 10 percent return on sales target.

In a release announcing her new job, Daimler said Adt's focus was on "shaping a long-term future for the brand, which was secured by founding a joint venture with Geely in China."

Daimler agreed in late March to jettison half of its shares in Smart. Starting in 2022, the brand's next-generation models will be built exclusively in China for global markets as part of the JV with Geely, which is controlled by Chinese billionaire Li Shufu.

Li is also Daimler's largest single shareholder. He secured nearly a tenth of Daimler’s equity in a stealth move designed not to trigger mandatory disclosure thresholds that already start at 3 percent.

On Monday, Daimler said Smart would discontinue sales in the U.S. and Canada, blaming a "declining micro-car market" in the countries and high homologation costs.

Smart's global sales fell 4.6 percent to 128,802 last year.