The executioner 终极刽子手
Nov 30th 2006
From The Economist print edition
Volkswagen's Ferdinand Piech is fanatical about cars and ruthless towards people ACCORDING to rumour, Ferdinand Piech likes to run chickens off the road in his Volkswagen Touareg. Whether that is true or not, he certainly tends to ride roughshod over humans, metaphorically at least. During his long career as head of Audi, chief executive of Volkswagen and now VW's supervisory-board chairman, he is reckoned to have fired at least 30 directors. They include three of his successors as head of Audi, a Volkswagen subsidiary, and his latest victim, Bernd Pischetsrieder, who succeeded him in 2002 as boss of VW. On November 7th the firm said that Mr Pischetsrieder would leave at the end of the year. It was another swift and bloodless execution by Mr Piech.
传说德国大众汽车公司的费迪南·皮耶是个对公司员工冷酷无情的汽车迷，而且喜欢驾驶自己的那辆大众途锐汽车，赶着路上的鸡群跑来跑去。无论该传闻是真是假，他对人的态度无情无义，肆意蹂躏，或许有些粉饰过度，但却毫不夸张。这位大众汽车公司的监委会主席曾经分别担任奥迪汽车公司和大众汽车公司的首席执行官。长期以来，至少已经有30位董事会成员因被他开除而离开了懂事会。这些人当中，三个是奥迪公司接替他的下一任领导人，一个大众汽车的子公司的负责人。而最近的一位是2002年续任的大众公司首席执行官贝恩德·毕睿德(Bernd Pischetsrieder)。毕睿德先生即将在年底离职的消息是大众公司在11月7日宣布的。如此快速无情的决定又是出自皮耶先生之手。
A manic, blue-eyed 69-year-old, Mr Piech combines the cold logic of Darwinism with a military ruthlessness in his commercial dealings. Engineering brilliance runs in his family: he is the grandson of the renowned Ferdinand Porsche, an Austrian who developed the Beetle, the people's car, in Nazi Germany, and later created the first Porsche sports car from VW parts. Some attribute Mr Piech's obsessive drive to a determination to outdo his grandfather, if not technically, then commercially.
这位狂妄自大的碧眼老人今年已经69岁。不仅他的经营理念和方法将优胜劣汰思想和残酷的军事化管理思想合二为一，而且在他的家族中也同样充盈着先进的汽车理念。奥地利人费迪南·保时捷是皮耶先生的祖父，在纳粹德国统治时期，他曾经设计了受到人民广泛的欢迎的甲克虫汽车。后来大众生产的第一辆保时捷汽车也同样出自他的手笔。如此娇人的成绩促使皮耶先生下定决心要超越他的祖父。即使从技术上超越不了，也要从商业管理上超越他。
Porsche's daughter Louise, Mr Piech's mother, inherited half the Porsche fortune and ran Porsche Holding, the Austrian company that today is the biggest distributor of VW and Porsche cars in Europe. Porsche and VW have always been close: the Porsche and Piech families together own half the shares and all the voting rights of Porsche AG. Recently Porsche AG has grown even closer by buying just under 30% of VW's shares and gaining two seats, besides Mr Piech's, on VW's supervisory board.
保时捷先生的女儿，也就是皮耶的母亲，继承了父亲一半的家产和保时捷公司的全部股份。目前保时捷公司是欧洲最大的大众汽车和保时捷汽车分销商。保时捷公司和大众汽车公司一向关系密切，这是因为保时捷家族和皮耶家族拥有保时捷公司一半股份和所有投票决定权。除此以外，保时捷公司计划即将购买大众汽车30%的股份，而且大众公司监委会出皮耶以外的两个席位也即将纳入保时捷麾下。
Ferry先生
The young Mr Piech, with reading difficulties but mechanical flair, studied at Zurich Technical University, where he worked on a new Formula One engine. He joined his uncle Ferry at Porsche in 1963, developing its first really successful model, the 911, and the racing 917, which won a series of trophies in 1970 and 1971, including the Le Mans 24-hour race.
青年时就读于苏黎世科技大学的皮耶不愿读书，但在机械设计方面却颇有天赋。在校期间，他加入了F1方程式赛车发动机的设计队伍。1963年，在叔叔范瑞的帮助下，皮耶加入了保时捷公司，并设计了保时捷公司第一个从真正意义上来讲非常成功的发动机模型911。后来917发动机被用于参加比赛，并在1970到1971年期间，为公司赢得了一系列的奖杯，其中就有Le Mans全天候比赛的奖杯。
After being denied the top job at Porsche in 1972, he moved to Audi, where he elevated its output from bourgeois saloons to sporty numbers such as the Quattro. It is largely because of Mr Piech that Audi is today vying with BMW and Mercedes as a maker of premium cars. In 1993 he moved to VW and turned its losses into profits, saving jobs in its home town of Wolfsburg with the help of two men, Gerhard Schroder, then premier of Lower Saxony (and later German chancellor), and Peter Hartz, a brilliant personnel director. In 1999 Mr Piech was hailed as the “car executive of the century”. His masterstroke was the reinvention of the Beetle as a modern car, a big seller in Europe and America. He also brought in Ignacio Lopez from Opel, a subsidiary of General Motors, who was famous for cutting costs by squeezing suppliers—though Mr Lopez later had to leave on suspicion of having lifted trade secrets from GM.
1972年申请保时捷的最高职务被拒绝之后，皮耶便投奔了奥迪汽车公司。他将奥迪公司的产品定位从中产阶级的豪华汽车，转变成了具有运动汽车概念的夸特罗品牌。正是由于他的努力，奥迪公司现在才可以和宝马，奔驰等豪华汽车品牌一较高下。1993年他跳槽到大众汽车公司，在Gerhard Schroder和首相Lower Saxony(后来成为德国总理)以及优秀的人力资源管理总监Peter Hartz的协助下,公司扭亏为盈,并为大众公司总部所在地沃尔夫斯堡市保住了就业岗位。1999年在呼吁声中皮耶被评为“德国汽车业的首席执行官”. 他绝妙的一笔在于,重新设计了甲壳虫汽车, 赋予了它现代汽车理念,并使它在欧美地区取得了销售佳绩. 他还从欧宝汽车公司购入了通用汽车的下属公司Ignacio Lopez公司. 该公司很出名是因为它可以大量削减供应价格而大幅度降低成本. 后来洛佩兹先生怀疑皮耶从通用公司得到了商业情报,才出手收购.
VW is no ordinary company. Its roots lie in the Nazi war machine, and it is protected from takeover by 1960 law that limits large shareholders to 20% of the voting rights. Moreover the state of Lower Saxon owns 18.2% and its premier sits on the supervisory board. Add the fact that VW's labour force is 92% unionised, and the result is a company that cannot easily sack thousands of people. In negotiations this week, jobs at a factory in Belgium were sacrificed to save jobs in Germany.
大众汽车是一个非同寻常的公司. 当年大众公司靠纳粹政府发动战争起家, 后来由于1960年商法规定股份低于20%的股东不具有投票权,大众公司受到法律保护并免于被银行接管. 另外鲁尔 萨克逊州政府拥有其18.2%的股份,州长还担任着监委会委员的职务. 还有大众公司的员工92%都加入了工会, 其结果使公司不可能轻易作出大规模裁员的决定. 本周经过几轮磋商之后, 为了保证本国的就业率,比利时的一家工厂就成了牺牲品.
Even the Darwinist Mr Piech had to adapt to that reality when he became chief executive. That led to a extraordinary symbiosis between the management and the workers' representatives, ten of whom sit on VW's supervisory board. But Mr Hartz, Mr Piech's loyal lieutenant, may have taken the symbiosis too far he is under investigation for a scandal that came to light last year, in which company funds were allegedly used to pay for prostitutes and foreign trips for those board members. One of them, Klaus Volkert, was arrested on November 21st on suspicion of trying to influence witnesses. Mr Hartz insists that his superiors had no knowledge of any misconduct.
成为首席执行管之后,即使是掌握达尔文真经的皮耶也必须面对残酷的现实. 必须在管理层和职工代表之间形成强大的凝聚力,何况监委会中有十位是来自工人阶层. 然而,皮耶先生忠耿耿的上校哈氏先生(Hartz)却太把他们当回事了. 去年因财务丑闻曝光的他现在依然正在接受调查. 他涉嫌挪用公司财产用于为这十位成员提供资金,进行嫖娼和处境旅游等活动. 其中一位成员由于涉嫌恐吓证人,已经在11月21日被捕. 但哈氏先生坚持认为,他的上级领导远绝未参与任何与赎职有关的行为.
Execution, execution, execution
撤职, 撤职, 撤职
Bugatti Veyron
Having taken over at VW, Mr Piech embarked on a spending spree that indulged his personal passion for thoroughbred cars. He bought Bugatti and Lamborghini and outbid BMW for Rolls-Royce and Bentley (though BMW cunningly secured the use of the Rolls-Royce name). He conceived the ill-selling Phaeton luxury VW model with its own “transparent” assembly works in Dresden. He created the Bugatti Veyron a 1,000-horsepower monster that few can afford. Though most of these moves into luxury cars produc white elephants, people at Volkswagen insist that some are beginning to pay their way: Bentley and Lamborghini are making money, and the Bentley Continental is based on the Phaeton platform. Whatever his fantasy, the Porsche grandson seems to get away with it in the end.
掌管了大众公司的大权之后,皮耶先生为了满足自己的对纯种车型的欲望,便立刻开始实施自己的疯狂并购计划. 他收购了布加迪和蓝博基尼两大汽车品牌,一举超过了宝马的劳斯莱斯和宾利汽车品牌(尽管是宝马公司非常狡猾地取得了劳斯莱斯品牌的使用权). 经过深思熟虑,他将销量不佳的辉腾豪华VM版与德累斯顿”透明”生产线结合起来生产. 他还创造了很少人能买的起, 达到1000马力的布加迪.威龙怪兽级跑车. 尽管这些被列入豪华轿车名单的汽车华而不实, 大众人认为其中的一些已经开始略显成效:宾利和蓝博基尼已经开始盈利,而且宾利大陆版是基于辉腾平台生产的. 无论他的幻想曾经会是什么,保时捷的这位孙子最后还是侥幸成功了.
Mr Piech's influence on VW has hardly diminished since he became non-executive chairman in 2002. Indeed, with the advent of Porsche as VW's biggest shareholder, his power has gone from strength to strength. In May he publicly expressed his discontent with Mr Pischetsrieder but was persuaded to extend his contract to 2012. But Mr Pischetsrieder seemed to be failing to find answers to VW's persistent problems with costs, despite the arrival of a cost-cutting genius, Wolfgang Bernhard, hired from DaimlerChrysler. Then came a showdown over VW's interests in two truck firms, MAN and Scania, which Mr Piech wants to combine and add to his empire—a deal that Mr Pischetsrieder secretly opposed. So he had to go, and Mr Bernhard is expect to follow soon. Martin Winterkorn, head of Audi, will replace Mr Pischetsrieder. He is a car fanatic like Mr Piech, and the two men get on famously. But he must surely be mindful that one false step could easily turn him into the next of the ruthless Mr Piech's long string of victims.
即使在2002年皮耶先生已经退任非执行主席, 皮耶先生在大众公司的影响力丝毫都没有减弱.而事实上, 由于保时捷成为大众公司最大的股东这件事情的尘埃落定, 他的影响力反而水涨船高. 五月份,他公开表示了对毕睿德(Pischetsrieder)先生的不满. 被说服之后, 毕睿德最后还是决定任期延长到2012年. 然而,即使他雇来了戴姆乐.克莱斯勒的成本压缩天才Wolfgang Bernhard,也没有解决掉长期困扰大众公司的成本过高的问题.随后在收购MAN和 Scania两家卡车制造公司的时候又出现了困难的局面.而这两家公司是皮耶先生极力想要并入他的帝国版图的,但毕睿德却在暗中反对此项收购计划. 因此,他必须离开, Bernhard先生也将紧随其后. 代替毕睿德的是来自奥迪公司的首席执行官Martin Winterkorn. 他和皮耶一样也是个疯狂的汽车爱好者,大家公认这两个人相处得还相当不错. 即使这样,他也必须时刻保持警惕,因为一步之差, 他就会立刻成为冷面无情的皮耶先生的一连串的牺牲品。（译者 leeanlee）
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