Jaguar Land Rover said to shortlist former BMW, Audi execs for CEO post

LONDON -- Jaguar Land Rover's shortlist of executives to succeed CEO Ralf Speth includes ex-BMW development chief Klaus Froehlich and former Audi CEO Bram Schot, the Financial Times reported.

The announcement could come as early as this week, the paper said.

JLR said in January that Speth would retire in September, triggering a search for a replacement.

Speth reaches 65 in September, which requires him to retire under the company policy of JLR parent Tata Motors. He will become non-executive vice-chairman of JLR.

The shortlist includes Froehlich, Schot, Nick Rogers, who is JLR's head of engineering, and Fred Schulze, head of production at Audi's home plant in Ingolstadt, Germany, the FT said, citing multiple sources familiar with the search.

Froelich retired from BMW at the end of June after reaching 60, the mandatory retirement age at BMW.

In January 2019, Audi promoted Schot, its former sales and marketing chief to the CEO role he had held on an interim basis after Munich prosecutors detained former CEO Rupert Stadler in June 2018 for his alleged role in helping to bring Audi diesel cars equipped with illegal software on to the European market. In April Schot was replaced as Audi CEO by former BMW executive Markus Duesmann.

Fiat Chrysler Automobiles CEO Mike Manley, who has previously been mentioned in reports as a possible replacement for Speth at JLR, was not included in the shortlist, according to the Financial Times report,

The list focuses on executives who have worked for German premium automakers, continuing a hiring theme for JLR since it was bought by Tata Motors from Ford Motor in 2008.

Speth was hired in 2010 after a career that included 20 years at BMW, and many of his early executive hires were from the German automaker, including the former head of R&D Wolfgang Ziebart and the head of manufacturing at BMW's Dingolfing plant, Wolfgang Stadler.

JLR's current chief commercial officer, Felix Braeutigam, joined the company in 2018 from Porsche.

Speth revived JLR's fortunes, reversing its unprofitability under Ford ownership and recording double-digit margins from 2011-2015. In 2015, the company had a 14 percent profit margin as a booming Chinese market snapped up Range Rovers.

JLR's growth model came unstuck, however, as first the Chinese market cooled in 2018 and then the coronavirus pandemic struck, forcing it to make job cuts in a bid to rescue its finances.