Brilliant move at the top ... shame about the bottom line
These are not brilliant times for Brilliance China Automotive. Sales at the firm's luxury-car joint venture with BMW were 30 per cent below expectations in the first half, and the rumoured departure of four key executives has pushed its share price to a recent year low.
So it was nice to hear some comforting words from chief executive Su Qiang who spoke to reporters in Beijing yesterday.
'Ups and downs are very normal,' a philosophical Mr Su said. 'You can't say the big three carmakers in the United States are not powerful, but they have had so many happy and sad stories.'
And for the first time he responded to critics' charges that Brilliance China's management doesn't, well, know very much about the car business.
'We think car operations and technology are two different things, and we can learn while working with BMW,' Mr Su explained. 'Since establishing 10 years ago, we have turned the almost-bankrupt Jin Bei Minibus into a No1 seller ... and we have the support and respect of the world-class car maker BMW.'
